


Try to Pacify this Hungering (while I deny your effects on me)

by shaenie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Phil Coulson, Bondage, But they get better, Collars, D/s world AU, Dominant Phil Coulson, M/M, Past mentions of sexual abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Submissive Clint Barton, Things start out a little rocky, Very rough sex, shield au, smart ass Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:19:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 190,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9260075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaenie/pseuds/shaenie
Summary: The SHIELD D/s World AU that the world probably doesn't need, but that I wrote anyway. Things don't start out easy between Coulson and Clint Barton when Coulson attempts to recruit Barton to join SHIELD, but things eventually do start to settle between them, even as SHIELD tries to figure out what has been happening to all the submissives that have been disappearing from western countries.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the warnings. Things don't always go just right between Clint and Phil at first, and there is at least one other scene that involves attempted sexual assault. That said, things do get better, if you want to give it a try.
> 
> Thank you's go out to Tittakv and Wolfshark for the beta work. All mistakes are mine.

Clint ducks into a bar, reasonably sure he isn’t being followed at the moment, though that almost doesn’t matter. He hasn’t eaten in two days and he has to piss like he’s going to die, and he’s taken out nineteen of them already, so they have to be running out of people, right?

As he makes for the darkened corner where the men’s room is lurking, a man in a dark suit stands up without looking at him, and maybe Clint’s instincts are dull from the last two days of running and fighting and hiding, but not a single thing pings him about the guy. Not even as he’s brushing by Clint, not even as something small and plastic like a phone brushes against Clint’s ribs. It isn’t until he’s actually zapped with a hundred thousand or so volts and hot piss runs down his leg, that he looks at the guy’s face. It’s a good face, lived in, but ordinary. It’s not a super secret agent face.

The guy in the suit reaches out and catches Clint easily as he falls, and that’s it. He’s out.

\---

He doesn’t know how long he’s been out, but he comes to fairly rapidly, a habit so ingrained that he’s sure of a few things right away. He’s indoors, someplace with heat of high enough quality that Clint doesn’t even feel a draft, which says something, considering the part of the world he’s in. There’s someone else in the room with him, though Clint doesn’t actually hear that person. He just feels the way the air in the room changes as they move around. He knows that he’s naked, which isn’t a huge surprise, but could be problematic with the weather outside (which, of course, is one of the many good reasons for whoever these persistent assholes are to keep him naked). He knows he’s been given at least a cursory wipe-down; he’d definitely pissed himself when he’d been tasered, and he doesn’t smell a trace of urine (this is actually a good sign; a sign that someone who isn’t him gives a shit about Clint’s dignity -- maybe, anyway; maybe they just didn’t want to smell piss while they waited for him to wake up). He’s still hungry and he’s thirsty, but he doesn’t have any new aches and pains that the tasering itself doesn’t explain. Except for one thing, one oddity, he’d say capture by this crew isn’t necessarily going to do anything but ruin his day. 

But that thing is a big weird thing.

He’s kneeling on a bed, and his wrists are bound behind him with what feel like quality leather restraints, but they are pulled up and away from his body at an angle, so that where Clint is on his knees, his shoulders ache a little. There are several pillows braced under his chest, or he’d be in a lot more pain, but... He’s also bound by the same kinds of restraints at his ankles and his thighs. It isn’t being tied up that is weird, of course, and there are less comfortable ways to be made immobile. 

It’s two things: the leather restraints, and the position. Together they don’t read as: secured as a prisoner. They read as: secured for sexual use.

Though Clint is almost sure he didn’t move or breathe wrong or tense up to give himself away, someone says, “You’re a hard man to get ahold of, Mr. Barton. You didn’t even give us a chance to introduce ourselves.” His voice is low and maybe very slightly amused, and Clint knows immediately that this is Agent Smooth from the bar, the one that had probably carried him out, claiming Clint was drunk, without anyone looking twice at him.

“When strangers point guns at me, I find I usually don’t care who they’re working for,” Clint says hoarsely. He would kill for a beer right now.

He doesn’t get a beer, but he does get a bottle of water displayed in front of his face, still sealed. He thinks, _Here we go,_ but instead of questions, the hands holding the bottle merely uncap it and stick a straw in the top. A hand rests on the back of his neck, forcing him to keep his head down, probably to protect the agent’s identity (Clint isn’t going to mention that he has already seen enough of his face to give a meticulously accurate description to a sketch artist). Clint is surprised, but not too surprised to drink thirstily.

“You were never in any danger, Mr. Barton. We just want to talk to you,” the man says.

“Maybe you should lead with that, instead of with the people with guns,” Clint says.

“We would have, if we could have gotten anyone close to you,” Agent Smooth says genially. “You have some extremely well developed instincts.”

“I didn’t see _you_ coming,” Clint grumbles.

“I have a number of well developed skills of my own,” Agent Smooth says without a trace of vanity. “I don’t usually do recruitment. My level of skill isn’t usually necessary. They called me in after you nearly drowned Maxwell.”

“If he nearly drowned, it was because he panicked. I left him safe and even mostly dry,” Clint says. “So you got the call after…” He counts in his head, “the sixth guy I took out?”

Agent Smooth hums out an affirmative.

“So what took you so long?” Clint knows it’s not a good idea to engage sarcasm here, but he learned it so young and so well that he can hardly help it.

“When I do this kind of work at all, I work solo,” Agent Smooth says. “The rest of them still had their orders. I merely observed and acted when the situation allowed for it.”

“So you just let me plow through the other thirteen of them?” Clint asks, genuinely surprised.

“It was clear at that point that you weren’t utilizing lethal force, so it became a kind of impromptu training exercise,” Agent Smooth says. “There are another dozen or so that are disappointed they’re not going to get a shot at you.” He definitely sounds amused now, though it’s still pretty low-key verbally.

It sounds to Clint like they’d put a lot of manpower and probably expense into bringing him in for a meeting. He’d known that already; there were just so many of them. But he’s really not liking the idea now. He’d like to think he could get out of this alive and unencumbered, but that’s less and less likely the more he finds out they’ve invested in him.

“You can feel free to let me go, and I’ll give them a run for their money,” Clint says blandly.

“I don’t think so,” Agent Smooth says. “First, I’m Agent Coulson. I work for SHIELD.”

Clint cocks his head a little. There’s something familiar about the name of the agency while at the same time he’s pretty sure he’s never heard of it before except in backroom whispers.

“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division,” Agent Smooth… Coulson says. 

“I think I might have heard of you once,” Clint says, which is just a way to say he has the network to have heard about it, but doesn’t know enough to be a danger to it.

“We’re hoping to convince you to come to work for us,” Coulson says easily. “You’ve never had strong ideological ties to anyone you’ve ever worked for, and money doesn’t seem to be that thing that drives you on a fundamental level. You’ve got quite the reputation for doing dirty jobs that need doing without taking any of the credit for it.”

“If I’m not taking any of the credit for it, how is that my reputation?” Clint wants to know, but he’s uneasy now.

“Contacts overlap, Mr. Barton, you know that. Yours, SHIELD’s, former KGB, Hydra, FBI, CIA, the list goes on. If there is data somewhere in the network, someone will at some point get their hands on it. Something I didn’t know about you, though, was that you would engage with non-lethal force over an extended period of time. All accounts indicate that you terminate threats to yourself with extreme prejudice.”

It’s not phrased like a question, but it is one, of course. Clint sighs. “Your first team of six was too well organized, too well equipped, and too formidable to make it worthwhile to kill them all and make an enemy of you. I know a lot about shadow agencies, and on average, if they send people to recruit you and you kill them, they send someone else to try to recruit you until the body count gets too high, and they just send people to kill you. I hoped you’d take the message the first time. That I wasn’t interested, but I had no intention of messing with your ops or costing you valuable resources. But you just kept coming.”

“And you didn’t think if you killed a dozen or so of us that we’d just give it up as a bad investment,” Coulson says.

“That’s not how it works in my experience,” Clint says flatly.

“You would have been right and wrong. If you’d killed the first recruitment team, we would have come down on this area in force, flushed you out, found out everything you knew or did and why, and most likely would have still offered you a job. An asset like you is not quite priceless, but SHIELD would not have lost sleep over a six man team that couldn’t bring you down. That only makes you more marketable, Mr. Barton.”

Clint barks out a laugh in spite of himself. “Is that what would have happened if you hadn’t managed to catch me?” he asks.

“Assuming you didn’t kill me, yes. If you had finally decided that lethal force was your best option and I ended up dead, SHIELD would have burned you out.” He says it casually, again without vanity, but Clint can hear the message there easily enough. If he manages to escape, killing Coulson will eventually prove fatal. It’s not cheerful news, but it’s good to know. He wonders how high up in SHIELD’s hierarchy Coulson is, and decides that asking won’t help him.

“So, now what?” Clint asks.

“You don’t want to know what we want you for?” Coulson asks, sounding genuinely curious.

“You want me to be a sniper,” Clint says. “That’s what I’m good at.”

“It’s not all you’re good at,” Coulson says. There is a riffling of paper from behind Clint. “You took out sixty-five percent of our people in hand to hand combat and the rest with stealth and guile on a level with black ops training. Your file doesn’t list where you acquired those skills.”

“What else does my file say?” Clint asks.

“That you disappeared from early 2007 to mid 2008 as far as we can tell. I assume the two are related?”

“You could say that,” Clint agrees. “I assassinated a North Korean politician under orders of a U.S. Alphabet Agency, and my cover team rabitted. I ended up in prison.”

“Where you learned what you needed to know to get out of prison, I assume,” Coulson says. “I wouldn’t have thought it would have taken you so long.”

“There isn’t a prison there anymore,” Clint says. “And there isn’t anyone left in the world that knows my name in conjunction with any political assassinations in North Korea.”

“It’s good to know you’re thorough,” Coulson says. He has that faint tone that might mean he’s amused again. “But for the most part, you’re right. We want you as a specialist, a marksman, although you’ve got enough skill spread to be very useful to us in other small-scale or even large-scale operations as well.”

“Where does specialist sit on the expendability scale?” Clint asks, because, really, that’s kind of the vital question.

“Except for senior agents, specialists are our least expendable personnel. And you personally will be one of the least expendable of those. It takes millions of dollars and refined natural talent to train and retain your average specialist, and you, Mr. Barton, are in no way average.” He pauses. “There will, however, be limits set on your behavior.”

Clint blinks, understanding exactly what that means, and not liking it at all. Winning his independence had been one of the worst things Clint has ever had to do. He isn’t interested in trading it in. “Do you think you know me well enough to decide that I need ‘limits set on my behavior’?” he asks flatly.

“No,” Coulson says at once. “It’s not personal. All specialists have limits set on their behavior to improve and refine their abilities, and also to make sure that they look exclusively to their handlers for everything.”

“Behavioral conditioning?” Clint asks and somehow doesn’t clench his teeth.

“Not the way you mean,” Coulson says, sounding unworried. “We’re not interested in changing who you are. What would be the point? Who you are is why we’re here to begin with. We’re interested in making sure you have a narrow focus to commit to. SHIELD is a big organization. We have no intention of letting people like you fall through the cracks. The last thing we want is to take a man of your talent and, for lack of understanding those talents, send him on missions that aren’t suited for him in every possible way. Your handler will be that focus. You won’t report to anyone else. You won’t receive missions from anyone else. You’ll share quarters. He’ll learn everything there is to know about you, and you’ll learn how to trust him with your life.”

“Sure, it sounds great in theory,” Clint says, though he doesn’t really think so; he hasn’t been close to anyone like that in almost two decades, and after the first and only time he’d had a collar locked around his throat, he’d never wanted to be. “How are they matched up? There has to be some kind of compatibility break down.”

“Most of the time there are batteries of tests, for both parties, and we look for overlap.”

“That can only work if no one lies,” Clint says, not bothering to hide his disbelief.

“That’s why I said batteries,” Coulson says. “Tests for days or weeks. It’s an involved process. In your case, I’ve asked for permission to handle you, and it’s been given to me, in the event that you agree.”

Now Clint is surprised. “Why?” he blurts.

“Because you aren’t someone we hand-picked and trained. You have no inherent loyalty to SHIELD as an organization, and while I think we can build that in time, for the moment you are more likely to relate to the man that managed to take you down than you are to a stranger.”

Clint wonders whose idea that had been; he can’t even argue it. If he were theoretically going to do this and had to pick right now who to collar him, it would be Coulson. It’s all theoretical, of course. Clint doesn’t want a collar at all, and has spent all of his adult life avoiding being in a position of having to take one.

“What’s in it for me,” he says finally.

“Security,” Coulson says. “The chance to do what you do best in an environment that encourages you to think for yourself. If it matters, you’ll make a ton of money and have the best benefits package in the world.” Coulson sounds like he knows it doesn’t much matter to Clint. Then he surprises Clint entirely. “An education, if you want one. It won’t be anything like your typical College or University experience, but if you want to expand your education, and not _just_ your physical abilities, we’ll make that happen. A partner, which is something you haven’t had since you were a teenager, and even then, our sources indicate that the relationship wasn’t your decision.” Clint wants to bark out a laugh at that, but manages to withhold it. “When I say partner, I mean someone you can count on to have your back without exception. And we protect our own, Mr. Barton. Your extraction team will _never_ rabbit on you. You will never have to take apart a prison brick by brick by yourself. If you do end up in enemy hands, we will lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get you back. A place for yourself in an organization that you can ultimately trust, though I understand that right now, and in these circumstances, you probably can’t really believe that.”

“You’re right,” Clint says. “I can’t.” But some part of Clint kind of wants to. “What about if I say thanks, but no thanks,” he asks, tense but not exactly frightened.

“We’re not going to kill you,” Coulson says so firmly that Clint can’t quite keep from believing him. “If you don’t come in now, you might change your mind a year from now.” Coulson pauses for several seconds, and Clint feels the air in the room shift as he moves closer to Clint. When he cups a cheek of Clint’s ass in one hand, Clint isn’t exactly shocked. “But to the victor goes the spoils,” Coulson says. “I’m definitely going to fuck you tonight. If you’re not interested in SHIELD, I’ll fuck you, feed you, sedate you, and leave you here to wake up alone and with clothes and equipment and money enough to let you take yourself someplace safe. When you wake up, you’ll be alone, and safe, and if you ever come back here, this place will be gone.”

“Which will make it hard to get in touch with you if I ever do decide to come in,” Clint points out, but he’s shivering a little. He’s not scared, exactly. He’s been handled by dominants before against his will, and it isn’t something that debilitates him. It’s Coulson. It’s the way he’d sounded when he’d said he was definitely going to fuck Clint; the low thrum in his usually even voice that might as well be full on lust, factoring in the rest of what he knows about Coulson. It’s that there’s something about Coulson that makes Clint kind of want it, and _that_ is something that scares him.

“I’ll provide you with contact information, should you ever decide to use it,” Coulson says, his hand still resting easily on Clint’s ass.

“And if I agree? What happens then?” But Clint thinks he knows.

“Then I’ll feed you and have you look over some preliminary documents,” Coulson says. “And then I’ll fuck you and we’ll get some sleep.”

“So part of the specialist/handler arrangement is that you get the use of my body basically at will,” Clint clarifies, though he doesn’t really need the confirmation; he knows how the world works. He knows the price you pay for not fighting overtly to establish your own dominance. Clint has paid that price before.

Coulson sounds a little startled. “Not quite,” he says. “The terms of your agreement don’t allow you to have sex at your convenience, with anyone that you like the look of. That kind of fraternization for a specialist is harmful more often than not. If you want sex, you’ll be having it with me. As the senior partner in the arrangement, most of the power sexually belongs to me. But that isn’t meant to be permanent, Mr. Barton. At some point, we’ll find an arrangement that suits us, and things will settle into a balance. That said, until that happens, it _is_ my job to keep you sexually stable. Long term abstinence doesn’t do anything for your skills or your mental health, which I know you know, and you won’t be able to hit the bars and pick up a hot piece of security breach any time you want to.” He sounds faintly amused again. “I told you, your handler will be your partner in every way. You’ll trust him and look to him for orders at all times.”

“How long do I have to think about this?” Clint asks, belly rolling with nerves.

“I wouldn’t want you leave your hands the way they are for more than another hour, at most,” Coulson says. “I’ll get some food started while you think about it.” Coulson’s palm lingers on the curve of Clint’s ass, and then he moves away.

Clint’s brain stutters haphazardly through information for a minute or so before he takes his emotions in hand and locks them down, trying to give himself as rational a view as he can.

Clint has worked on his own for a long time. He isn’t sure how well he’ll manage taking orders, and that’s a concern. Balancing that slightly is the fact that he’d be taking orders from Coulson, and leaving aside the man’s taste for recreational rape, Clint already has a kind of feel for Coulson. He believes Coulson will have his back, for example. He believes that he and Coulson could make a good team. He does not believe that there will be any kind of radical shift in their sexual dynamic, however. He doesn’t think Coulson is lying to him; he just doesn’t think Coulson is aware of all the facts. Clint could be wrong, but he doesn’t think he is. It isn’t unheard of for the veritable chattel to be in charge in the bedroom; it’s not even all that unusual. But he still doesn’t think there will be a significant shift in sexual power once they get used to each other.

He’s not entirely sure that it’s a problem for him, though, except through the way that it exposes him. And he’d have to trust Coulson a lot to expose himself like that.

Does he trust Coulson?

No, not yet. The circumstances make it almost impossible. But he thinks that Coulson has believed every word he’s said to Clint since Clint woke up, which means that he probably is ultimately trustworthy. Time and experience will be enough to establish real trust in place of Clint’s suspicion that Coulson _could_ be trusted.

Even then, those are kind of the easy questions.

Does he want to work for SHIELD? It will be super-massive espionage and black ops, and Clint is eminently suitable for the work, and some part of him likes the idea of knowing he’ll be part of a bigger picture, not just a loaded gun. But even if the majority of his contact is with Coulson alone, there will be times that he will need to integrate, and Clint will be in a position he hasn’t been in for almost twenty years: working clearly and obviously for someone who is not himself. Likely most of the people he works closely with will be in the same position, but Clint has a lot invested in his independence. It had cost him to win it. He doesn’t like the idea of having to show a token of submission, and if he does this, there is no doubt that he will. For missions, at least, he’ll have to act in the capacity of Coulson’s specialist, but probably for other things, too. Training, sharing practice spaces, probably a cafeteria, semi-social things that Clint hasn’t done in years and isn’t sure he has any interest in doing again. They seem like trivial things, but they loom in Clint’s mind.

The money doesn’t matter except that it provides security, and honestly, Clint has money; he doesn’t spend much, and a lot of what he does pays extremely well. But Coulson had mentioned other kinds of security on top of that, as well, and it would be a lie to pretend that doesn’t matter to him. Not just Coulson at his back, but a whole operation geared toward people like Clint, treating them not as tools, like a gun or a bow, but as people with needs, no matter how uncertain Clint is about the way that they go about meeting those needs.

At one time or another, Clint has contracted with most of the Alphabet Agencies in the U.S., and several times for similar agencies in other countries. He’s seen how they’re run, how… corporate they are. How they use accounting to determine where your value lies on their sliding scale.

If Coulson is telling the truth, SHIELD doesn’t work like that. Your work is your worth, and Clint likes the idea of that. He’s better than anyone at what he does, and he’s not afraid to work hard. SHIELD seems… skewed. Like their moral compass isn’t quite facing due north. But Clint’s moral compass has been suspect since he was a teenager, and there’s definitely some part of him that wonders what it would be like to work with people that are like him, people that are gray.

“Question,” Clint says. He can smell something savory happening in what must be the kitchen behind him, and his guts are grinding with enthusiasm. The rest of the room, what Clint can see of it, is a small seating area slightly behind him and to the left, and what must be a door to the bathroom. He can barely make out another door behind him to the right, which probably leads outside. The kitchen is entirely out of sight, so the place is small. Clint has a great view of a blank wall, a single chair, and a bedside table with a lamp on it, but nothing identifying, which is probably deliberate.

“Shoot,” Coulson says. It sounds like he’s stirring something.

“What if I say yes, and then later decide it’s not for me?” he asks. Because, yeah.

Something clatters on the stove and Coulson makes a little hissing sound of pain.

Clint can’t help but think that can’t be a good sign.

“There are ways to get out, if you decide to get out,” Coulson says finally. “If you just slip away on a mission one day, though, you’re going to be marked. Maybe for death, maybe for re-aquirement, but marked. If you come to me and tell me you have to go, however, things can be handled. SHIELD’s technology level is high. We can manage implants and neural memory degradation to some degree. A lot of that depends on what kind of threat you assess as. If you don’t want to be there and you’re willing to share with us your reasoning, there is about a fifty-fifty chance that you’ll end up filing a pile of nondisclosure agreements and you can walk out the front door.”

“What’s the other fifty?” Clint asks.

“We mess with your head so that you can’t remember anything important about us, if we feel we can do so without endangering you. It’s also possible that you’d be killed. If I asked to leave, I’d be killed.” Coulson sounds unbothered by that. “I know too much. Specialists and assets have a narrower view of operations. Your chances of being killed because you decide SHIELD isn’t for you are pretty low.”

“So for example,” Clint says expectantly.

“For example, if you’re injured too badly to continue in your present capacity, SHIELD will try to find another capacity in which to utilize your skills. If you don’t want that, and you tell us you’re ready to be done, SHIELD would run every mission you’ve done, review every contact you’ve made, and weigh every negative outcome, and will most of the time let you go your own way with a generous severance package, a new identity, and the understanding that you forget all you ever knew about SHIELD.” There is a brief splash and then flavorful steam wafts in Clint’s direction.

“That wasn’t the question, though,” he says. “What if I just decide I don’t like it there.”

Coulson sighs. “The same series of events, mostly. If it happens, it will probably be pretty early in, so there won’t be much background to dig through. We’ll take into consideration your ability to keep secrets, which we’re aware is extremely well developed. We’ll investigate to make sure something hasn’t happened that has made you decide to become problematic for SHIELD as an organization. Assuming that isn’t the case, same outcome. We don’t go immediately to murder, Mr. Barton,” Coulson says seriously. “If it really comes down to a situation in which you just feel like you’re a bad fit, the most likely scenario is that we part ways with the understanding that you’ll keep what you know to yourself.”

“You don’t seem worried,” Clint says.

“I’ve never seen it happen,” Coulson says. “SHIELD goes out of its way to choose recruits that will be a good fit.”

And, again, Clint believes him.

“Dinner is ready, and we should talk about your hands,” Coulson says, a gentle prompt.

“Still planning on raping me?” Clint asks.

Coulson is silent for a heartbeat. “I’m planning on fucking you,” he says blandly. “Whether or not you define it as rape is entirely at your discretion, and depends almost exclusively on whether or not you decide to work with us. Even then, you can define it as you choose.”

Clint rolls everything he knows over in his mind again, checking and re-checking his logic. Then he lets the emotion he’s been keeping at bay wash back in, and he’s scared and quasi-fascinated in equal amounts. He understands it’s Coulson, that quasi-fascination. He understands that his independence, as much as he values it, is isolating and sometimes impossible to function within for a man like him, and he only dares indulge in what he needs a tiny, tiny fraction of the time, and even then, it’s not what he needs, really. It’s just physical release. His cock also firms up a little, not hard, but with that same fascination.

But he sees potential, and that’s something that he hasn’t seen in a long time. Coulson’s intent to use his body isn’t even much of a threat. The world works this way. Clint has avoided it by operating almost exclusively on his own, but that doesn’t make him ignorant of it. 

And there is something about Coulson that makes him want it. No point to trying to deny that to himself. And it’s been a long time since he got something he wanted.

“I haven’t eaten anything in two days,” Clint says. “I’ll agree, but if you’re planning on some kind of sex that may or may not be rape happening in the near future, I’d prefer that happen before I eat.”

Coulson is silent for two heartbeats this time. “If that’s what you want,” is what he finally says.

“I’ve been known to throw up after being raped,” Clint says as dispassionately as he can. “I’ll hold off on the food until I can be sure I’ll keep it down.”

There is some noise and movement behind him that Clint eventually decides is Coulson getting undressed. A moment later, Coulson is walking into Clint’s line of sight again for the first time since the bar. Clint would love to say that he thoroughly catalogues everything he can about the man, but the truth is, the second he catches sight of Coulson’s cock, he hardly sees the rest.

“Are you kidding me?” Clint asks, heart abruptly pounding. “There’s no fucking way. I take it back. I _un_ -agree!” Coulson has to be eleven or twelve inches long and at least as big around as Clint’s wrist. His cock is a _monster_ , and even if this wasn’t happening more or less against his will, Clint isn’t sure he’d have taken Coulson to bed.

“This isn’t going to happen the way you think,” Coulson tells him calmly; he doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that Clint is too busy staring at his enormous red cock to make any kind of response to that. Coulson opens the bedside table and pulls out a bottle of lube that Clint judges is too small by half.

“Seriously, no,” Clint says, as Coulson steps back, even with Clint’s defenseless ass.

He bends and does something, and the restraints around Clint’s thighs and ankles release. Coulson brushes them off the side of the bed. If it weren’t for Clint’s hands, he might have a chance at avoiding this, but there isn’t enough play in them to let him even twist around so he’s facing Coulson unless he wants to dislocate both shoulders.

Coulson’s weight descends on the bed; he slides a thigh between Clint’s and pushes them apart wide enough to make the new position strain his shoulders. Clint’s cock, the stupid fucking thing, has filled a little more, clearly not having one iota of understanding that Coulson is about to rip him in half with his cock.

“I don’t prep,” Coulson says, weirdly casually. “I lube, because otherwise there would be no way to avoid really tearing you up, but I’m not going to stretch you. Part of it for me is watching you struggle to take it.” He doesn’t sound at all apologetic. The lube clicks open, and Coulson stretches Clint’s cheeks apart with one hand and just sort of slicks Clint’s hole, applying pressure until Clint’s ass gives a little, and then deposits a pretty large quantity of lube directly into Clint’s ass. 

It’s not enough to make him relax, but it’s enough to make him calm down a little. Coulson is clearly going to hurt Clint with his cock. Clint isn’t sure it could be avoided even with stretching, as it’s been a long damned while for Clint. But it’s also clear that Coulson doesn’t intend it to be a bleeding, traumatic kind of injury, or he wouldn’t have bothered with that much lube. And Clint has seen porn; he knows full well that it’s possible. He just hasn’t ever applied the possibility to himself.

Clint starts trying to get his body to relax. It turns out to be almost impossible under the circumstances, in spite of the fact that he’s trained himself long since to be able to relax under some pretty harsh circumstances. “It’s been a long time,” he says hoarsely. “And I still think that this is going to cause internal bleeding and possibly end up in reconstructive surgery, but fighting you will only hurt me more. So I’m just asking you to remember. It’s been a long time.”

His voice almost comes out calm. Clint is too terrified to be proud of himself.

“Don’t worry,” Coulson murmurs, and Clint hears the slick sound of lube on skin as Coulson slicks his cock, and Clint forces his major muscle groups into relaxation, which works this time, thank God. He doesn’t think it will be enough, but he has to try something. “I’ve only ever really hurt someone accidentally once, and I was very young.”

“Accidentally,” Clint repeats, unable to keep from stressing the word.

He feels the massive head of Coulson’s cock slide down his crack and nestle up against his asshole. He can hear himself breathing, short and sharp, and Agent Coulson slides a hand beneath Clint and curls his hand around Clint’s cock. Clint is abruptly washed through with shame that he’s even partially hard, but it doesn’t matter. He knows what shame does to him, and his cock hardens a little more in Coulson’s hand. Coulson makes a soft, pleased sound, and then strokes Clint, slow and gentle, and Clint responds. It’s been so long since he’s had a hand other than his own on his cock that it would be more surprising if he hadn’t responded. He makes a breathy noise that twists more humiliation in the back of his brain and tries to tell himself that it doesn’t mean anything. That Coulson probably knows exactly how long it’s been for Clint, and he’s just using it as a means to an end. It doesn’t keep him from shivering with pleasure, though; his body wants Coulson’s hand, and Clint’s mind has very little to do with it.

There is a slow build of pressure as Coulson’s cock nudges up against his asshole, and a little thrill of fear passes through Clint. It’s going to hurt. It’s basic physics. There’s nothing Clint can do about that, either. The pressure builds, but Clint stays hard in Coulson’s hand and tries to keep the rest of himself loose and relaxed.

When the head of Coulson’s cock breaches him, red pain jerks through Clint’s body, and he inhales to shout, but Coulson’s free hand is abruptly covering his mouth.

“This is a safe house, specialist,” Coulson says. “It’s here to protect both of us. If you’re going to scream, if you can’t control yourself, I’ll gag you.”

The cry tangles in his throat, and Clint forces it back. His asshole feels like it’s ready to snap with the tension of Coulson’s cock forcing him open, but there’s still enough of his brain online to recognize Coulson’s logic. Neither of them can afford any facetime with the local law. Clint has already been dodging them, and he guesses Coulson just doesn’t want the hassle. Either way, screaming is likely to alert the neighbors, and neither of them want that.

He nods jerkily, and Coulson’s hand moves on his cock again, stroking Clint back to full erection, not pushing any further into his ass. Clint ducks his head down and presses his face into the pillows supporting him, though it pulls harder at his arms. He has no illusions about his ability to suppress the sounds he’s going to be making when Coulson presses into him again.

He tries to relax around the invasion of Coulson’s cock, but it’s like there’s so much of that stretch that there is no possibility of relaxing. He’s pulled so wide open that his hole will either stretch to accommodate it on its own or he’s going to tear. There’s nothing else he can do.

Clint gasps out a couple of breaths, partly trying to prepare himself, partly because Coulson’s hand is still working his cock. The combination of the two confuses his body, sets it spinning.

“Good,” Coulson says, sounding genuinely pleased, a more overt emotion than anything Clint has heard him use so far.

Coulson clicks open the lube, which he drizzles down the crack of Clint’s ass, and then presumably along his own cock again, from the slick sound. Clint doesn’t know whether to be pleased at more lube or distressed that it means Coulson is clearly still going to be shoving that thing further into Clint.

The pressure comes immediately, not just in but _apart_ ; Clint can feel the width of Coulson’s cock pressing at him inside, opening him up and making room for that monster in Clint’s guts. It’s slow, though, slow enough that Clint is able to smother most of his half-shouts of pain into the pillow. Coulson’s hand speeds up on his cock, fist tighter, with a careful twist of motion that sends pleasure messages to mingle with the pain at the base of his spine.

It isn’t good, exactly, it doesn’t balance out the pain, but it gives him something to think of besides the pain and the slow, implacable pressure of Coulson’s cock pushing in and pushing him open. He tries to concentrate on the hand on his cock rather than the way it feels to be pried apart by Coulson’s impossible cock. He can feel himself shaking, his hands and arms and shoulders tugging against the bindings, which make almost no noise at all.

Coulson pulls out just a little, which hurts almost as much as it had pressing in, and adds more lube. He slides in a little easier this time, not deeper, just like… Like whatever space he’d made inside Clint with his cock before he’d pulled it out is still there, and Coulson pulls his hand away from Clint’s cock -- Clint refuses to whimper -- and then slides it back again, this time slick with lube. Clint makes a garbled noise as Coulson’s hand glides smoothly around his cock, still tight, like before, but wet and easy, giving Clint a bright flash of pleasure, all heat and slick friction.

Coulson tugs out again, just a little, and then works his way back in with what is clearly a stroke now, if a short one. He strokes into Clint a dozen times with what Clint can only guess is just the first couple of inches of his cock, and the burn and pressure are still there, but it’s a little easier, and Clint feels it when he finally goes lax, not fighting it. Coulson apparently feels it, too, because on the next stroke he pushes in a little further, and Clint snarls into the pillow with pain, but it’s a lesser pain, though he still feels stretched too wide, like he might split.

Coulson’s hand is jerking roughly at Clint’s cock now, and he’s stroking in just a little more, not trying to press, just keeping Clint open around his cock, and Clint’s cock is leaking all over Coulson’s fist. The drag of Coulson’s hand along Clint’s cock is so good, and if Coulson hadn’t been trying to shove his enormous cock into Clint’s ass, Clint would have already come. But it’s a little different, and Coulson isn’t pushing in any further, and Clint can feel his balls tightening, even though it seems impossible that he could be anywhere close to coming considering the circumstances.

Coulson pulls back, adds more lube -- Clint thinks the sheets must be literally puddled with it -- and slides in again, just filling the space that he’d already made in Clint’s body for a few seconds, and then leaning a little more into it, so that Clint cries out into the pillow at each forward push. Then, again, Coulson is only stroking shallowly, only taking what he’s already spread open, but his fist on Clint’s cock is working furiously, and Clint can’t believe it, but he’s definitely going to come. He feels his balls tighten and his ass clench around Coulson’s huge tool, and then he’s whining out a little cry as his cock jerks and spits across the backs of Coulson’s knuckles, his whole body shivering and tight with pleasure, and then loosening with release.

Coulson whispers, “Beautiful,” and before Clint can consider that, he’s pressing forward in earnest now, Clint’s relaxed body still resisting, but he can feel the difference. Coulson only takes a few more inches, but he takes them firmly, rocking into Clint’s body with a little more force. Clint can hear Coulson gasping a little, and Clint knows what he is, what he’s always been, and the sound is enough to shoot echoes of pleasure through his body, and if anything he settles a little more, he shifts a little to spread his knees wider. His own breathing is a gasping series of short, soft cries, and he isn’t surprised at all when Coulson’s hand tightens around his cock again.

Clint twists at the sensitivity, and Coulson makes a low, groaning noise deep in his chest that makes Clint dizzy with conflicting desires. He doesn’t fight Coulson’s hand on him -- it’s been a long time, but he knows the rules -- and Coulson is barely touching him, his fist loose and gentle.

Coulson presses again, carving out another inch into Clint’s body, and for at least a minute, maybe two, he just rocks into Clint, breathing hard and wrecking Clint’s self control in tiny increments.

He asks the question that he had told himself firmly that he wouldn’t ask. “How… how much?”

“About half,” Coulson murmurs. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Clint groans, muffled into the pillow. “I don’t think I can take…”

“Yes, you can,” Coulson assures him, warm voiced. He tugs almost all the way free, adds lube, and then presses in again all at once, and another inch or so for good measure. Clint swallows his strangled scream, but it chokes out of him anyway, still muffled by the pillow. Coulson strokes into the space he’s made, long and slow, until Clint manages to relax enough to take that extra inch, and then Coulson’s hand closes tight around Clint’s cock again.

He’s half hard, God, and what is wrong with him, but Coulson’s hand on his cock is bizarrely cool compared to the heat of the rest of his body, is like ice chips soothing his overheated skin, pleasure not strong enough to eclipse the pain, but enough to offset it, at least a little. Clint feels his throat tighten, and no, he’s not going to do this. He hasn’t done this in years. He isn’t going to start now. But he can feel it happening, that slow, sinking rush of thought spilling away from him.

Coulson strokes him, hand still slick with lube and Clint’s come, and Clint’s breath hisses out as he hardens again uncomfortably quickly, and rapidly blinks away the burn behind his eyelids. Coulson presses in again at the same time, inexorable stretch. Clint chokes on nothing but air, pressing his face harder into the pillow, resisting that slow drag, even though it doesn’t matter.

Coulson will figure it out. If Clint goes to work for SHIELD, and Coulson is his handler, he’ll figure it out, and it’s pointless, but Clint can’t help it. He’s been hiding inside himself for so long just letting go of that control is next to impossible.

Coulson’s hand slowly tightens, moves a fraction more quickly, and now Clint can feel him pressing forward the whole time, not hard or rough, but determined, no longer in careful inches, but in a slow but ceaseless forward motion, and he’s wholly unprepared when the slightly thicker base of Coulson’s cock scrapes roughly along Clint’s prostate.

Clint cries out, forgetting to muffle it this time, and Coulson murmurs something low and soothing, and only then does he pull back and start fucking Clint in earnest.

Clint feels pushed open, pinned apart, and then Coulson shifts his hips slightly and the whole length of his cock drags along Clint’s prostate, and Clint barely has time to wonder how careful he must have been to avoid it, as thick as he is, before he shoves his face into the pillow and screams out a sound of mingled pleasure and pain. Coulson pulls back and shoves this time, and the burn is enormous, but the shriek of pleasure across Clint’s prostate is so incredibly good that Clint can hardly see, his cock like iron in Coulson’s hand, and he muffles the sound in the pillow because he can’t tell if it’s going to come out as a shout or a moan. He feels himself drifting a little, thoughts coming unmoored, and he doesn’t bother to blink away the tears this time. He’s so full, he’s so helpless, he’s completely under Coulson’s power, and it’s not a bad place to be, at least for right now. Coulson is pounding his ass, and Clint is shuddering and trying to rock his cock into Coulson’s grip. Clint’s ass still hurts, his body is being used, and it hasn’t been like this for Clint. 

He’s gulping in over-heated air through the pillow and he can’t stop it anymore, it’s been so long and it’s never been like this, and he rocks back onto Coulson, feeling pierced and pried open. Coulson’s cock in his ass is like a dissection, and when you’re dissected, you can’t hide what’s inside you.

Coulson groans, one hand going to Clint’s hip to jerk him back onto Coulson’s cock, the other moving furiously around Clint’s cock, and Clint hears himself breathing, “Please, please, please.”

“Christ,” Coulson growls out, “Christ you…” But he doesn’t tell Clint what he is, and Clint isn’t equipped to guess. He needs Coulson to come, he needs it first so that Clint can feel it, so that he can _know_ , but he’s so close he isn’t sure he can stop himself. He twists his hips and his prostate is nearly his undoing, the rough press of Coulson’s cock dragging along it, but Coulson’s hand releases his cock -- Clint whines; he doesn’t have it in him to do anything else -- and drags at Clint’s other hip, pulling Clint’s body roughly onto his cock into a rocking, jerking rhythm that Clint understands and tightens for, though it barely makes a difference as wide as Coulson is. But maybe it does, because Coulson freezes for a moment, and then bends over Clint’s back and rams it all the way in, and then he’s shaking and coming, the low grinding noise escaping his chest making Clint’s cock ache and Clint’s mind relax at having a part in making that noise.

Coulson’s breathing is harsh and choppy, but he doesn’t pause and give himself time to regroup. He goes straight for Clint’s cock, and this time barely gives it a stroke before Clint is coming all over the bedding with a low moan of need and gratitude.

They both breathe heavily for a few seconds, Clint grateful to free his hot face from the sweaty pillow. His arms and shoulders ache, but it doesn’t bother him, can’t bother him. He knows it, he feels it. His body is a roar of muted sensation, and Coulson’s cock is still buried in his ass. Clint squeezes around it, can’t help it, and Coulson sighs out a pleasure sound and tugs a hand through Clint’s hair, sharp and glittery bright. Coulson’s sweaty skin is sticking to Clint’s and he’s content where he is, but he feels Coulson lever himself upright and tug at Clint’s hands. They aren’t numb or anything, but they feel leaden after all the tension, and Clint just lets them fall to either side of him. Coulson drops the wrist restraints over the edge of the bed.

Clint stays where he is, where he’s been put, and lets himself be how he is, just for a few minutes, he promises, just for a little while.


	2. Chapter 2

Phil believes in the facts that he can see and hear and the answers predicated on those facts.

He doesn’t see how the facts he knows could have prepared him for Clint Barton.

He’d watched Barton tear through some of their best recruiters and capture and containment teams, and that wasn’t entirely a surprise, except for maybe his method. He has the man’s entire past in a file folder on the desk, and none of that had been a surprise. Not even the North Korean prison, really. They had extrapolated some event similar to that. He has personality profiles, professional operations, he has every response to every threat SHIELD had ever proven or speculated Barton had been involved in.

By all rights, he should know everything about the man. He should have anticipated everything about this situation, right down to Barton’s pragmatism about being handled.

Phil hadn’t intended to take him at all. It’s his right per protocol, something Barton would have known to expect if he agreed to work with SHIELD. And then Phil had _seen_ him, seen him in three-dimensional reality, not in photos and grainy videos from the very rare times Barton had managed to get caught on film. He had briefly been the focus of Barton’s undivided attention, just before the taser had brought him down, and had been sure Barton had been memorizing every detail.

He believes in lust at first sight, but he’s never experienced it like that, like everything not-Barton had retreated, became as unimportant as sounds on a distant highway, his focus on Barton had been so complete. Manhandling Barton into the car and driving to the safe house had been almost automatic, while his mind and groin anticipated what would come after.

He’d cleaned Barton up, bound him, read through his file with the kind of attention to detail that he reserves for priority mission intel. He’d made the call to Fury to request that he be allowed to be Barton’s provisionary handler, and listened to Fury rant about how Phil’s workload and pay grade made his taking on a specialist impossible.

Phil had said, “I want him, and I guarantee that he’s going to be too much for anyone he’s already tried his hand against and come out ahead. I can get him to come in.”

“You can’t promise that,” Fury had muttered.

“I can get him to come in, and I’m willing to bet no one else can,” Phil had insisted.

It had been a gut feeling, but Phil was comfortable with that. Fury had reluctantly agreed, both because he trusts Phil, and because Phil rarely asks for anything for himself, and Phil had manipulated Barton’s unresisting body into a position that pleased him.

The conversation had gone mostly as he’d expected it to, including Barton’s reaction to Phil’s cock, but…

But. Phil has been involved in his share of handling new assets and specialists. He’s also had several bed partners that either enjoyed his size, or were too fascinated by it to let it stop them.

Something is different with Barton, something Phil doesn’t know how to decode, despite his extensive understanding of Barton as a whole.

Barton hadn’t struggled at all, and even his cries had been effectively muffled by the pillow he’d buried his face in, a kind of determined logic to his efforts that indicated that he knew the consequences of yelling aloud. Barton’s muffled shouts will likely take up permanent residence in Phil’s mental partition of things that get him off hard.

Phil looks down the languid stretch of Barton’s body, and he can see where he’s still stretched out and loose, Phil’s come dripping out of his hole, still open and pink, showing that secret inside flesh that Phil had exposed for his own satisfaction. He wants… He wants to shove Barton down onto his belly and straddle his hips. He wants to angle his cock down and plunge his shaft right into that still-open hole. He wants to use his cock inside Barton like a jackhammer.

He shakes his head a little. He’s rattled by something, but he can’t put his finger on what it is, exactly. Something about Barton, something that feels unfinished or only half-understood.

And. Phil has handled at least a dozen new assets, and it’s always been the same. Objections and struggles until they were too worn out to fight.

Barton hadn’t struggled and he’d muffled his own cries on command, and sometime even before his first orgasm he’d gone… pliant, though his body had still resisted the invasion of Phil’s cock. And at the end he’d pushed back onto Phil’s cock with every sign that he’d wanted it, had said please, had clenched tight around Phil when he’d come and had come himself almost as soon as Phil got a hand on his cock.

Phil has never had that happen. He still half doesn’t believe it. There is nothing in Barton’s file that might explain it. As far as SHIELD knows, Barton has never had any formal submissive training. They know about Trickshot, they know how Barton had escaped that situation, one he had been too young to legally be in at all, but there’s nothing to show that he’s been trained or might legitimately be a submissive. It’s not _likely_ ; operatives like Barton almost universally require a dominant for direction if they’re truly submissive. 

He resists the urge to roll Barton onto his back so that he can see his face. He doesn’t because he doesn’t want to see Barton hollow-eyed and beaten in the aftermath. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t.

Barton’s stomach growls furiously, and Phil is grateful for the distraction.

“Let’s get you fed,” Phil says, and Barton lets out a long sigh.

“I’m not sure my muscles are back in working order,” he says, a little wry, which makes Phil blink. “And can I have at least some kind of pants to eat in? I don’t want to drop anything hot on my dick.”

“I think I can arrange that,” Coulson says, though he’s feeling struck a little dumb by Barton’s manner. There’s nothing accusatory in his voice. The line of his back is still easy. He’d made a _joke_.

Phil distracts himself by walking to a duffel and unfolding a pair of sweatpants with the SHIELD logo on them. They’re Barton’s size. Everything in the duffel is Barton’s size. 

Barton rolls over onto his back, his body a languid sprawl, and takes the sweatpants. “Two minutes in the shower?” he asks hopefully.

“Take as long as you need. It can safely simmer for quite some time.” Phil doesn’t even think what he’s saying until Barton smirks a little.

“Can it, now?” he asks, and brushes by Phil without making any effort to avoid touching him.

Bravado? Has Barton been sexually used often enough to stop responding defensively to it? Phil doesn’t think so. Previous to the actual act, Barton had been uniformly hostile about the idea. But it doesn’t feel like bravado either. Is it possible that he can set it aside as something quasi-work related, and just let it go? He would have understood the terms of his agreement; Phil had in no way been unclear.

But it still doesn’t feel right. None of it feels right.

And Phil is hard as a rock as he washes his hands and then stirs the simple stew around in the pan to make sure it’s evenly heated.

Barton hadn’t behaved like anyone else Phil has handled at all. It makes Phil wish he’d pulled him over, so that he could see how his face had looked right after.

Barton emerges from the bathroom, spiky hair a shade darker when wet, sweats slung low on his hips. He’s moving with care, and some dark, clenching place in Phil’s brain that he hadn’t previously been acquainted with is bright with desire at seeing it. His face is calm, almost serene, and he walks directly up to Phil to stare down at the stew. Phil can feel the heat of his body. Barton willingly in his space like this doesn’t make things make any more sense. He turns his attention to dishing out two servings, Barton’s noticeably bigger than Phil’s own, and Barton takes it and the spoon Phil offers him, and settles down on the bed to eat, one leg curled up under him, probably to keep as much weight as he can off of his ass.

He eats in complete silence for almost ten minutes; Phil eats as well, but most of his attention is fixed on Barton. He can’t bring himself to even pretend much interest in his food.

Barton empties his bowl and sets it aside on the bedside table, then slides down onto his back and stretches like a cat, his back arched, his whole body pulled into a taut line. Then he settles again, and some of that languid posture returns to his body.

Phil takes both of their bowls to the sink, rinses them, and leaves them for a real wash in the morning.

Phil pauses at the sink, though, his thoughts still feeling jumbled with an odd mix of urgency that he has no reason for. He washes his hands while he gets this under control, but still can’t shake the feeling that he is missing something. 

“So when did I show up on your radar?” Barton asks; he looks a little tired now, but Phil returns to the chair by the bed where he can watch Barton while they talk.

“You’ve been on our radar for a long time,” Phil says. “But you’ve stepped up your game recently. You seemed mostly content to keep your business in the States until a few years back, which we watched, but didn’t interfere with. When you went international, we really started paying attention.”

“Why?” Barton asks.

“You interfered in an op we were running in Uzbekistan,” Phil says. “Your target was important to SHIELD, not personally, but for informational purposes.”

Barton thinks that over for a minute. “SHIELD is basically an international entity,” he says. “Don’t you talk to people? I got the order on the Minister of the Public from the government itself.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t framed that way; it was meant to look like a hit from inside his cartel, but I’m pretty good at following the money.”

“We gather information, but you were outside our normal data stream. The cartel was building WMD’s. We needed to know where.” Barton’s eyebrows arch. “You complicated the op, but we managed to find an alternative means of gathering the information, so we didn’t interfere with you. But you’ve been front and center on our radar since then.”

“Then it was just a matter of back-trailing me to see who I was and what I’d been doing,” Barton says thoughtfully. “Sure you got everything?”

“Sure enough,” Phil says. “Hawkeye.”

Barton blinks, not so much surprised as startled. “So then I guess you do,” he says. It doesn’t sound like it bothers him. “There was paperwork?” he asks, and lets out a jaw cracking yawn.

Phil considers. “Most of it can be handled tomorrow. But your status has to be handled tonight.”

“And what status would that be?” Barton asks.

“We… I have to make sure you’re making an informed choice,” Phil says. “I told you what it would be like to be a specialist, but that isn’t your only option.” Phil works to keep his tone steady and doesn’t let his teeth clench. He reaches down to his laptop bag and pulls out a pair of chain collars. Barton eyes them warily, but doesn’t actually say anything. “So this is basically your chance to get out of one-on-one operations with me as your handler. Anyone in your league should be a specialist, and if you choose not to be my specialist, someone else will pick you up within days, I’m guessing. But in the meantime, you’d have to choose to pass over specialist and become an asset. Assets don’t work with the same handler all the time; they’re assigned to a handler based on what skills they can bring to a mission, rather than having a handler sort through missions to find out what you specifically should be assigned to. The relationship of a handler to his asset isn’t that different, though it does allow a degree of sexual freedom that specialists don’t get. Not that an asset isn’t in a position to avoid that kind of relationship with his or her handler, but that it isn’t necessarily the only kind of outlet available to them. The difference is that it’s not permanent, and it gives you time to find someone who is a good fit for you.” Phil’s jaw aches with tension at the idea that Barton might choose to try his hand at being an asset.

“So instead of one dedicated handler, I get passed around until we figure out where I belong? Let me guess; batteries of tests?” Barton’s jaw is clenched, a muscle jumping.

“You shouldn’t stay an asset,” Phil grates out. “It would be a misuse of your potential. But if you want some time to decide, that’s your option.”

“So being ‘handled’ by multiple people versus ‘handling’ by the devil I know,” Barton says acerbically.

“I’m not going to promise not to fuck you whenever I want to,” Phil says tightly. “If you aren’t willing to accept that, I’m offering you the only out I’ve got, Barton.”

Barton cocks his head and looks at Phil for a long moment. Then he smiles so briefly Phil almost thinks he’d imagined it. “And it’s killing you to offer it,” Barton says. “You want me.”

Phil blinks. “On sight,” he admits, surprising himself a little with his candor.

Barton blinks this time, his expression serious. “I’ve been an independent a long time, Coulson. I know the way the world works, and I know that switches and low scale dominants end up in submissive roles to make up for the lack of true submissives, but there are some things I won’t do.”

Phil is silent for a long moment. “Such as?”

Barton shrugs. “It hasn’t been an issue in more than a decade and a half,” he says, clearly sincere. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”

“That’s fair,” Phil says a little hoarsely, reading the answer into Barton’s words easily enough. “If it matters to you, as a specialist, you outrank almost everybody.”

Barton laughs, and it’s a rich, hearty sound, genuine and warm. “It might be fun, for a change. Which one is which?” he asks.

Phil unwinds the chains and sets the beaten silver one aside. The other is braided titanium hung with two small round tags about the size of dimes dangling from it. He leans toward Barton, who shifts himself forward as well in response, and shows him the tags. One is emblazoned with the SHIELD logo on it. The other is engraved with the letters SPL.

Barton glances up at Phil. “That’s going to be a little obvious if I’m ever compromised on an op,” he says.

“You won’t wear it on ops,” Phil says. “I’ll mark you permanently once you’ve signed everything.”

Barton arches a brow. “Tattoo?” he asks.

Phil nods, rather than answering; the idea of tattooing his mark into Barton’s flesh is enough to make him want to snarl with arousal, and he’s not sure of his ability to conceal that if he actually answers aloud.

Barton looks thoughtful, but doesn’t object.

“Come here,” Phil says, tugging the collar open with the lock at the back.

Barton studies him seriously for a few seconds, and then says, “I can put it on myself.”

Phil, who has never been really possessive in his life, not about the collaring portion of things, at least, doesn’t move. “That isn’t how this works,” he says.

“We can make it work however we want it to work,” Barton says. “You specifically told me that. I’ve agreed to your terms, but that doesn’t mean I have to offer an actual act of submission to you like that. It’s symbolic at best.”

“It’s still a symbol that I want,” Phil says, and he does. He wants to watch Barton kneel and accept the collar, symbolic or not. He wants the chance to pretend, at least, that it’s more real than that.

Barton drags a hand through his hair. “You’re going to be disappointed,” he says. “I won’t let you force me to give you my free will. I’ve given you everything else, even things I know that I won’t have much free will about, but I won’t give everything over to you, like you have the right.”

Phil’s hands clench into fists around both ends of the collar, but Barton is essentially right. Phil will fuck him, Phil will do dozens of things to him that Barton has no idea about right now. Barton will play the part of the submissive partner, but the collar is a real thing. A commitment he has no right to ask Barton to make. He relaxes his hands and passes the collar to Barton.

Barton examines the lock briefly, but doesn’t object to it. He tugs it around his own throat, and a moment later it is done. Barton smiles a little. “I had to kill the last man that put a collar on me against my will, Coulson,” he says. “It’s better this way.”

Phil catalogues that thought away for now. He knows the generalities, if not the specifics; he’ll put some time into learning as much as he can about Clint’s distant past, for his own satisfaction, if for no other reason.

What he can’t stop thinking about is how much he wants to put the collar on Barton himself, with his own hands, and he doesn’t know why it even matters.

He’s probably collared dozens of assets on SHIELD’s behalf, and the nine specialists that he had handled himself, and it’s never been something he thought much about. Half the time, with the assets, at least, he’d handed the collar over to the recruitment team and let them handle it.

He looks at it around Barton’s throat and itches to take it off, just so that he can do it right.

Barton lets out another jaw cracking yawn. “Are we done here? Because I haven’t slept in a few days, and this bed is the most comfortable piece of furniture I’ve personally been involved with in months.” Barton draws back and sprawls across the mattress. “The rest in the morning?”

“Of course,” Phil says, and stands, dressed only in a pair of sweatpants of his own. He whirls the laptop on the desk to face him and sends a quick report in, and leaves it running because he’s had to wait for a laptop or tablet to boot up too many times when he should have been running for his life. 

When he turns back, Barton has shifted himself over to one side of the bed and split the pillows to two apiece. He’s on his back, his eyes are already closed, and Phil thinks cogently for the first time that Barton is actually gorgeous. One of the most beautiful people he has ever seen. The collar gleams against his throat, and Phil feels something about that, even if he hadn’t done it with his own hands. It still marks him as Phil’s specialist, is still a type of gesture, and it looks good against Barton’s golden skin. 

Phil pulls his gaze away and turns out every light but the bathroom, though he closes the door most of the way. Even a little light can save lives in unfamiliar surroundings, and it’s not enough to compromise their night vision. 

He climbs into bed on the side Barton had left open, and his left hip settles into a huge wet spot. He doesn’t complain because the spot is smaller than he would have guessed, which means that Barton is probably lying in most of it himself, and because the whole reason it’s there is enough to make Phil firm up again in his sweats.

He could roll Barton over and have at him again, but he doesn’t really consider it. He won’t compromise Barton’s ability to walk into SHIELD tomorrow after their flight without wincing at every step. He shifts onto his side, and lets himself drift.


	3. Chapter 3

Clint doesn’t sleep. He lies awake with the familiar/unfamiliar weight of a collar around his neck, and half-wishes he’d let Coulson do it. Doing it himself had been necessary for his mind, for his peace of mind, but every other part of him had been willing. Not only that, though. Some part of Clint’s mind had been in on it, too. Something strong enough to make him recoil from the idea completely.

It doesn’t change anything. He’s still wearing the fucking thing. But it _does_ matter, too. He won’t give that much of himself away under _contract_.

He had been young when Trickshot had buckled and locked a collar around his throat. He hadn’t actually been willing exactly, but he’d believed the hype, the expectation of protection, the certainty that they would complement each other.

By the time he’d understood, he had been well and truly trapped, and even though Trickshot had been nothing that he was supposed to be for Clint, it had still caused Clint almost physical agony to plunge an arrow into his eye and break free of what had become almost a Faustian deal.

He is never doing that again. Coulson can take exactly what he would take from any other pseudo-submissive, and Clint won’t fight him. Will, on several levels, he knows, enjoy it. But he’ll never give himself away like that again. There isn’t enough trust in the world.

In all other ways, Clint will stay independent. He will keep the core of himself intact. It’s not like Coulson will know the difference.

He’s still awake when Coulson hums in his sleep and tucks his brow up against Clint’s shoulder and one of his hands settles onto Clint’s belly.

The touch relaxes him by increments and he doesn’t try to figure out why. It is what it is, and it doesn’t matter. He’s tired, and Coulson’s breath, warm against his shoulder, lulls him to sleep.

\---

Clint wakes warm and well rested; the angle of the light makes it past noon, but he remembers everything. There’s no reason to panic.

Coulson is already out of bed, showered and dressed in either the same dark suit he’d worn last night, or one so close as to be identical. Clint is a little amazed that he’d slept through Coulson moving around like that, but he sort of gets it, too. They’d made a deal. If Clint hadn’t already believed it deep in his mind, he would have snapped awake the moment Coulson had moved. So he does believe it, trusts it at least, and that’s enough.

Clint’s belly rumbles fiercely.

Coulson barely turns away from the desk long enough to pick up a plate with one of those warming things on top of it, and hands it to Clint without looking at him. “You have forty minutes to eat, shower, and get dressed. Our extraction is in one hour and eight minutes.” Then he does glance over at Clint, lips barely upturned. “If you’re as sticky as I was when I woke up, I’d suggest you eat quickly.”

Clint snickers a little -- the wet spot had been truly epic, though Clint had tried to protect Coulson from it as much as he could; it was just wider than Clint.

The plate is piled high with sausage, eggs and hashbrowns, and Clint wolfs it down with gusto. Coulson is typing away at the computer -- mission report about him, Clint is willing to guess -- and Clint wanders into the bathroom and showers for at least twenty of his forty minutes. He is still a little stiff from the way his arms had been bound last night, and he’s more than a little sore from Coulson’s cock, but he doesn’t feel injured. He’s in fighting shape, which is good enough. He towels off in the bathroom, considers the lube liberally plastered to one hip of the sweats, and then just carries them out into the living area with him. 

Might as well find out how this is going to work right now.

Coulson glances up; he gives Clint a heated once over, and then jerks his chin toward an open duffel. “Everything in it should fit you,” he says, and then turns back to what he was doing.

Clint isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or relieved.

The duffel contains black tactical gear, including socks and boots, and Clint dresses with rapid confidence. They are the kind of clothes he would have packed for himself. There’s a shoulder holster and a hip holster in the bottom of the bag, both heavy weapons. Clint takes them and buckles them into place, checks the guns for load weight and safety, and takes a long breath. Better. This is better.

Tucked to one side of the bag is a smaller bag, this one containing a variety of electronics. There is a cell phone already complete with a contacts list, an array of earbuds in a variety of sizes tucked into a plastic case, a slim black box with a clip on it that Clint assumes is the radio itself, and ten loaded clips. Clint attaches the radio to the back of his belt, finds an earbud that feels comfortable and stable, tucks the cell phone into his thigh pocket, and slips six of the loaded clips into the pockets they belong in on the tactical gear. The other four he distributes in other pockets, and that leaves him with the box with the rest of the earbuds in it. He ponders them, and then slips them into his other pocket. The one he’s wearing may fit best, but it doesn’t hurt to have backups.

By the time he’s patting himself down and checking the bag for anything he might have missed, Coulson has shut down his laptop and is watching him with interest. “Knives,” Clint says.

“We’ll outfit you fully at SHIELD,” Coulson says. “R&D is already working on your prototype bow.”

Clint tries not to look too pleased. “Before they knew I’d come in?” he asks.

“We had them begin as soon as we decided to recruit you,” Coulson says. “We knew you’d want it.”

Coulson hands Clint a pair of wrap around sunglasses with a slightly yellow tint to them. “It’s a little hike,” Coulson says. “Anything you want to save of your own?” He gestures toward a little sad pile of clothes Clint hadn’t really noticed.

Clint kneels and sorts through it, pockets a pair of sturdy knives, and then considers his phone. All of his contacts are on this phone.

“Your number hasn’t changed,” Coulson says. “I transferred your contacts. If you wanted to keep that one as a backup, no one will consider it a breach of trust.”

Clint stands slowly, looking at Coulson thoughtfully, and tucks the phone into a pocket.

“I recommend you use your SHIELD issued mobile device,” Coulson says. “It’s secured in ways that even very high-end dealers in that sort of thing can’t duplicate.”

“Got it,” Clint says. “Superphone. Cool.”

The corner of Coulson’s mouth quirks. “Your coat?” he asks.

Clint shakes his head. “Won’t be out long enough for it to matter, and it was never meant for this climate anyway. It’ll just bungle my gear. I hope you brought one, though.”

Coulson tugs a thick wool garment off a hook and shrugs it on. It’s almost a peacoat, but cut longer, to protect the tops of Coulson’s thighs. Clint sees that Coulson is wearing hiking boots with his impeccably tailored suit, and grins. This does not seem to bother Coulson in the slightest.

Outside, the safe house looks like nothing special, a very small, low brick house, almost a bungalow, with a sharply canted roof. There are a few other houses on the street that look about the same. Coulson locks it up with care, and then walks to a Land Rover and uses a fob to unlock the doors. They get in, and Coulson enters a code into the keypad set next to the ignition, and then plugs the key into the slot. The big SUV roars to life, and Coulson manages a neat circular turn that Clint thinks he would have had to make in at least three points. Of course, Coulson doesn’t pay much attention to curbs or lawns.

They drive for about eight minutes, and Coulson pulls off the road and locks the Land Rover down again. “On foot from here,” he tells Clint. “Someone will take care of the car.”

Clint nods and follows Coulson onto a barely there path through the snow, and it’s definitely a hike, but not a long one. They come out at a landing strip in the literal middle of nowhere, snow covered but visible. There’s a small plane idling on the strip.

“What about the rest of them?” Clint asks, because there’s no way the nineteen people plus the other twelve that Coulson had mentioned being around are going to fit in this plane.

“They have their own exit strategies,” Coulson says. “We’ll be riding with the first extraction team; this was originally their pickup point.”

“Great,” Clint says, thinking about the injuries he’d inflicted on that team. “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to see me.”

Coulson shoots him a look, one side of his mouth quirked up. “They’re professionals,” he says. “They’ll get over it.”

The passenger door is open, and Clint lets Coulson take the lead inside. There are ten seats in the passenger compartment, five along each side, all facing the interior of the plane. Coulson sticks his head into the cockpit for a minute or so, and Clint studies the people he’s about to be flying the friendly skies with. Only one of them looks hostile -- apparently, Maxwell hasn’t forgiven him for the almost drowning thing -- the rest merely curious. Their eyes linger on the collar, but if they’re surprised, they’re too professional to show it. 

Clint picks a seat with an open seat on either side of it, and feels a little pathetic that he hopes Coulson will pick one of the empties when he’s done up front.

Coulson does, warm along Clint’s right side. Clint is willing to bet that Coulson is aware that Clint’s left arm needs to be free. It clearly had to have been in his file; his shoulder holster and hip belt are designed for use on the left. He hopes Coulson had thought to mention that to the guys developing his bow, but doesn’t really doubt that he had.

The plane ride is long and cold, and Coulson elicits verbal reports from every member of the original recovery team. Clint listens with interest, storing away the kinds of questions that Coulson asks, aware that at some point he’ll be doing the same kind of answering. They’re all precise and professional, even Maxwell, who is still glaring daggers at Clint when Coulson isn’t looking.

Agent Tilly has a broken wrist, Agent Allen had been down for two days with a concussion, and Agent Reynolds has a long dark bruise on his face from where Clint had pistol whipped him with his own gun. The other three are basically fine, bumps and bruises, and Maxwell had got out of it with the least injury of all of them, but that doesn’t seem to matter to him.

He’s humiliated is the real problem, and he has a good reason to be. Clint had left Maxwell dangling from his feet at the end of a pier, well above the water; if Maxwell had managed to almost drown, it was because he’d done something stupid. Clint hadn’t even taken away his radio, for Christ’s sake. All he’d had to do was wait for someone to come get him.

He should ignore the glowering, but can’t quite make himself. He just returns those looks with bland indifference. Trickshot had always hated that look.

“So,” Tilly asks, once the reports are done and things have been quiet for a few minutes. “Do we know who’s going to run Specialist Barton?” She sounds merely curious.

“I am,” Coulson says without looking up from his laptop, though Clint is sure that he’s aware that all eyes have shifted in his direction, and are wide in spite of the general professionalism of this group.

“I…” Tilly says, bites her lip, and then clearly decides to go for it. “I thought you didn’t run specific operatives anymore.”

“I don’t,” Coulson says. “Specialist Barton is an exceptional case.”

The plane falls quiet again. The recovery team are all exchanging looks, something clearly along the lines of _What does that mean? What’s so exceptional about him?_ which Clint thinks they should be able to figure out on their own. Nineteen in two days, without casualties, without his bow, and without coming even close to being caught.

He wonders at Coulson being in the bar last night. He doesn’t doubt that Coulson has it in him to be so meticulous that he could engineer an encounter like that, but Clint himself hadn’t known where he was planning to go. Fluke? Or a set-up? Had he been herded there?

Clint doesn’t think so. He’ll ask Coulson when they’re alone. He’s reasonably sure Coulson will even tell him the truth.

The plane lands on a much more complex series of air strips, and they all traipse out, stretching. Maxwell somehow ends up behind Clint, which doesn’t worry Clint in the slightest. He mutters, “He got you in a chastity harness yet, Barton?” in a tone that would be a sneer if it weren’t meant to escape Coulson’s ears. 

Clint doubts Maxwell has any idea what the idea of Coulson putting a chastity harness on Clint does to him. He pushes that aside for a moment, and smirks over his shoulder at Maxwell. “Why? Are you in one?”

Maxwell’s face goes ruddy. “I’m a full agent. No one owns me.”

“No one owns me, either,” Clint says. “We’ve got an arrangement; that’s all.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Maxwell all but whispers.

Clint ignores him as they cross the open ground. Clint doesn’t know where they are right now, but it’s at least fifty degrees warmer than it had been where they were, and the sun feels great on his face. He can see a familiar skyline in the distance, but Clint has seen so many skylines that they all look familiar. He’ll have to get a better view to narrow it down.

There’s an SUV parked near an outbuilding next to a vintage red 1962 Corvette in gorgeous, pristine condition. Clint takes a couple of quick strides to bring himself even with Coulson and says, “Please, please tell me we get the Corvette.”

“Lola,” Coulson says. “She’s mine.”

“She’s fucking beautiful,” Clint almost moans, and Coulson turns a slight smile in his direction. Clint hurries a little to give himself the chance to circle the car, admiring it from all angles. Clint’s hands itch to close around the steering wheel, and he’s a little turned on just looking at the sleek lines of her. Lola seems like the perfect name for her. “Is there any possibility ever in any scenario that might end up with me getting to drive her?”

“You don’t have a valid driver’s license,” Coulson says.

Clint boggles at that for a second; he’s well versed in combat driving in every kind of condition, but Coulson is right. He hasn’t had an actual license in years.

“I’ll get one,” Clint says hopefully.

“We’ll see,” Coulson says. 

The other agents climb into the SUV, and Coulson opens Lola’s trunk and fits his laptop bag into a niche that is clearly custom made. There are a lot of niches, most of them gun shaped, but they’re all empty at the moment. Which makes sense, Clint supposes, if Coulson is leaving the car unattended.

“Get in,” Coulson says. “I want to beat them to headquarters.”

Clint gets in, admiring without putting his hands all over the interior of the car. He’s betting Coulson is hell on smudges.

The engine roars to life, and Clint is more surprised than he guesses he should be at the fact that Coulson jerks the wheel to one side, spinning them a hundred and eighty degrees, and then stomps on the gas.

Clint should have already realized that Coulson isn’t the kind of man to keep a car like this without getting all he can out out of it. They swerve around the SUV on the service road -- Clint waves cheerfully -- and Coulson tears his way onto a main road, barely losing any speed, and spends the whole drive intimidating other cars into getting out of his way, no mean feat in what Clint now recognizes is someplace in New York.

They shriek into a parking space in an underground parking garage, and when Clint looks over at him in the low light, Coulson’s eyes are half-lidded and he looks satisfied in a way that is at least pseudo-sexual. Clint’s cock starts to fill, and he looks away quickly, reminding himself that he’s about to sail into new and uncharted territory that he isn’t entirely certain he wants to be in.

Coulson strokes Lola’s steering wheel, and then gets out of the car; Clint does the same, waiting as Coulson retrieves his laptop case. He doesn’t chance another look at Coulson, and is just waiting for Coulson to start moving so Clint can fall into step with him, when Coulson catches Clint by the wrist.

Clint is startled into looking, and now Coulson looks a little grim. “As far as the rest of SHIELD is concerned, you’re under my protection. Ideally, no one will touch you. There are two exceptions. If Director Fury wants you, then neither of us have a choice. If Deputy Director Hill takes an interest, no choice. I’ve never had either of them poach from me, Barton, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Watch what you say. Don’t let your smart mouth get you into the kind of trouble we can’t avert.”

Clint is so taken aback by the information that all he manages to say is, “Sir,” in tones of agreement.

The security is almost entirely automated; when Coulson makes his way through it, he merely adds, “And guest,” which is interesting. It means Clint probably can’t get out before his own security protocols are initiated. At least, not this way. He doesn’t let it worry him overly. He’s good at getting into and out of places, if necessary.

There is a long corridor that empties into a foyer made entirely of glass walls. The day outside is beautiful, but they don’t stay to admire the view. Coulson swings right hard, and Clint paces him. Coulson flicks a glance at Clint, his eyes knowing, but he doesn’t try to stop him from walking in step with him.

There are people, not everywhere, but passing by in the other direction and taking cross halls; enough to make Clint nervous. A few of them greet Coulson. Most of them stare at Clint. Clint forces his body loose and ready and keeps his outward expression bored.

They’re fine until a dark-haired woman with a long stride walks directly up to Clint and slips her fingers under the collar around Clint’s neck. He doesn’t decide to do anything. He catches the hand beneath his collar, jerks it free and twists it into a nerve pinch that sends her to her knees. He has his gun to her head and cocked in almost the same instant. It all happens in less than two seconds.

Coulson sighs. Clint doesn’t look away from his target to see what that expression looks like. “Maria,” Coulson says. “I assume you’ve guessed that this is Specialist Barton. Barton, this is Deputy Director Maria Hill.”

Coulson doesn’t tell Clint to stand down, but Clint doesn’t need him to. He releases her wrist and holsters his gun. “Apologies, ma’am. I was told you had the authority. I just didn’t know you were you.” He’s as sincere as he can be while his heart jerks in his chest at being physically assaulted in a place that he’s more or less been told he wouldn’t have to worry about that kind of thing.

Deputy Director Hill gets to her feet, her gaze speculative. “My error,” she says. “I should have announced myself.” She turns to Coulson. “So, I’ll just give this to you.” She holds out her hand and drops something the size of a dime into Coulson’s palm. She turns back to Clint. “You have a full day in medical tomorrow. They’re expecting you at 7 a.m.” She offers him her hand. “It’s good to meet you, specialist.”

Clint takes it. “Thank you, ma’am.”

People are standing around staring. Hill sweeps her gaze around her, and they scatter.

Hill goes back the way she came, and Coulson sighs again. “Fury will hear all about it before he even meets you,” he says, tone even. “Maria respects that kind of show of strength; Fury may want to put you in your place.”

“I understand,” Clint says steadily.

“I should have told you as soon as I saw her coming,” Coulson says, glancing over at Clint. “It was as much my fault as hers.”

“I’ll take it as a learning experience, sir,” Clint says, calming a little under Coulson’s steady gaze and solid presence.

“ _She and I_ should take it as a learning experience,” Coulson says drily, and then starts walking again. Clint keeps up with his stride as they turn a corner into a large open area that is clearly a command center. There is a lot of background noise and about a hundred computer screens, and Clint finds that he could have picked Director Fury out of a line up even if he hadn’t been deep in discussion with Hill.

He’s a tall black man in a long leather coat; one eye is covered with an eye patch, and he exudes a certain amount of menace even from across the room. He looks up when they walk in, but he doesn’t break away from his conversation. Coulson is standing not-quite-at-attention (though it’s close enough that Clint is willing to bet he has some kind of military training in his background), and Clint mimics his stance. 

He’s kind of a sloucher and a leaner by inclination, but the situation is new, and he’s already been told not to be a dick, if not in so many words. Since he’s already assaulted Fury’s second in command, he thinks it can’t hurt to be extra cautious.

When Fury finishes talking to Hill, he turns and walks toward and then around them; Coulson turns to follow and Clint does the same. He keeps pace, but doesn’t fuss about Coulson entering what must be Fury’s office first.

Fury seats himself behind the desk. “I assume you know who I am, specialist?” he half-asks.

“I’ve extrapolated, Director,” Clint says and then wants to bite his tongue. Why couldn’t he have just said ‘yes, sir?’ There’s no point in alienating these people.

“So then I can be certain that at no time will you point a gun at my head?” Fury asks, and this time it’s a real question.

“Not unless you’ve been compromised and I have a kill order on you, sir,” Clint says, unwilling to ignore the possibility.

Fury stares at him across the desk. “Is that a serious answer?” Fury demands.

“Completely, sir,” Clint says. Coulson is still and silent beside Clint; Clint is going to assume that’s a good thing.

Fury leans back in his chair, staring one-eyed at Clint. “You could have killed every one of the nineteen agents you sent home injured,” Fury says, again not a question.

“Yes, sir,” Clint agrees.

“Agent Coulson reports that you were basically running a benefits to risk scenario. So, tell me, how long would you have let it go on?” Fury wants to know.

“Up to twenty attempts, with each attempt including all members of a team as a single attempt,” Clint says.

“Why twenty?” Fury asks.

“Because they would have been fresh teams and I would have been wearing down, by my reckoning. At that point, it would have been fairly clear you weren’t going to stop, and there would have been no benefit to me not to kill them, commandeer their supplies and equipment, and make myself scarce,” Clint says.

Fury looks at Coulson. “Could he have done it?”

“He has a gift for dropping out of sight,” Coulson says flatly. “We’ve lost him two dozen times between jobs. In my opinion, he could have done it.”

“Why not just leave the area when we first came at you?” Fury asks. “Why stick around to use my agents as pinatas?”

“Had a job,” Clint says.

He feels Coulson turn to look at him.

“You never asked, sir,” Clint says.

“What was the job?” Fury demands.

“Infiltrate and assassinate the leader of a sex trade cartel that operates out of several countries that was reputed to be in the area.”

“It was supposed to look like an inside job?” Coulson asks.

“No, sir. An execution.”

“Someone will step into that power vacuum,” Fury says.

“That was why I had to stay where I was,” Clint says. “There was a large gathering of other powers operating in that area and in a few others. I didn’t know they’d all be there; my intel was on only the one target. But since I was there…” Clint shrugged. “It was the only real shot at getting all of them at once. Once I realized the scope, it seemed pointless not to take them all out.”

“But you were hired for just the leader?” Coulson asks.

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you going to interpret SHIELD’s orders so liberally?” Fury asks tightly.

“I wasn’t under orders,” Clint said. “I was doing a favor for a friend.”

There are several long seconds of silence.

“So you put up with SHIELD running amok through your operation, injured nearly two dozen agents, evaded capture on at least fifteen occasions, while you took down the leaders of several criminal cartels as a favor for a friend?” Fury demands.

“I don’t have many friends, Director. I take care of the ones I have.” Clint knows his voice has gone clipped and flat, but there’s no help for that.

“I’ll want a list of who,” Fury says.

“To the best of my knowledge,” Clint says. “There were at least ten people there that wore masks.”

Coulson twitches. “What kind of masks?” he asks.

“Four with black, rebreather looking masks over their lower faces with some kind of goggle eye covering, and seven with cheches,” Clint reports.

“Cheches?” Fury asks Coulson.

“Indigo head wrap with a strip to wrap around the nose and mouth. They _were_ indigo?” Coulson asks.

“Yes,” Clint says, a little annoyed. “Cheches usually are; I’d have mentioned it if it was another color.” Fury gives him a sharp look, but doesn’t say anything. “Nothing identifying on their clothing, so they may have just been bodyguards. The facemasks were like Hydra’s, but not _exactly_ like that. Maybe modified recently, maybe a rank design? Maybe just something to do with the temperature. You don’t want your goggles steaming up in all that snow, right? But the uniform was stripped down. Looked like Hydra, but no color or patches or insignia or anything.”

“You know a lot about Hydra?” Fury asks.

“Not as much as I’d like to,” Clint admits. “I’ve taken a few jobs, been inside one compound. They’re hard to hit reliably.” Clint gestures to his face. “Masks,” he says, disgusted. “You’re a thousand feet out with a sniper rifle and you spend half your time trying to search their goddamned uniforms for distinctive markings.”

Fury nods. “Any experience is better than none,” he says. “Did you manage to take down any of your targets?”

Clint cocks his head. “I took down all of my targets. I don’t leave targets alive.”

Fury looks at him, considering. “Your friend you were helping,” he says. “Is he or she a worthwhile contact?”

Clint stiffens. “He’s worthwhile to _me_ ,” he says. “I doubt SHIELD has much of a use for him, considering your intelligence gathering networks.”

“There was a clandestine meeting of…” He cocks his head. “How many did you take out, and can you guess how many of those were actually leadership material?”

“I took out twenty-seven; I’d guess a quarter of those, if not a few more, were either leaders, seconds, or being groomed for those positions,” Clint answers.

“So we had SHIELD agents all over the area looking for you, and no idea at all that half a dozen cartels were having a meet and greet in Norway,” Fury says. “So clearly this contact of yours has some value. You said he was a friend? That this was a favor?”

Clint nods tightly. “He had a sister,” Clint says. “She died badly.”

Fury nods and frowns. “I want information on all your contacts, Barton, but I won’t ask for that from you now. Give us two weeks to convince you; if you’re not convinced, I’ll never bring it up again.” 

“Thank you, Director.” Clint’s surprise must show.

Fury waves a hand at him. “I’m also not going to bitch you out for laying hands on Hill; that was clearly not your fault.”

“I appreciate that, sir.”

“You,” Fury says, pointing at Coulson, “should have made sure he’d recognize her.”

“Yes, sir. I was remiss. We didn’t have a lot of time on the ground before the extraction. I still have paperwork to go through with him. I won’t contest a reprimand.”

Fury snorts. “She loved it. She thinks he’s the most adorable thing she’s ever seen.” He looks at Clint. “Don’t let her make a pet out of you.”

Clint arches his brows. “Are we talking a pet specialist or a pet sexual plaything here? Because I’m honestly not sure I could avoid either of those if she was really set on it.”

Fury sighs. “Well, you’re not stupid at least. Play up the badass angle with her; she’s not all that interested in men that fight her in bed. But she adores men that forget she’s Deputy Director Hill and don’t censor themselves with her. It’s like walking a wire.”

“I’ll do my best, Director,” Clint says, faintly amused.

Fury waves a hand at him again. “You’ve run through at least five time zones, so you’re probably hungry.” He glances at the clock. “Feel like you have another three or so hours in you?”

“Sure,” Clint says. “I have to be in medical tomorrow at seven, but that still gives me time to sleep.”

“I want all the paperwork in order. I want quarters assigned and gear issued. I want at least one example of your marksmanship with our top handguns and our top rifles, though if you run low on time, take care of the rifles first and we’ll get back to handguns. After you fire them, you can take your pick of what you want issued to you.”

“I’ll want to requisition two backups for every gun I’m issued and test fire those backups as well,” Clint says. “More, if I’m allowed, but that’s the minimum.”

Fury looks interested. “And why is that?” he asks.

“Because not all guns are created equal, not even guns that match in every spec. I need practice with my primary weapons, but I also need backup weapons that I can use just as well if my primary is not available, and no two guns fire exactly alike. I’ll have to manually adjust my aim for each gun individually, and that takes a little time. But I can do a quick and dirty job of it tonight, and then work them through one at a time when I have range time.” Clint shrugs. “If I don’t get what I’m asking for, I’m still going to be the best sniper you’ve got. But if I do, I’m going to be the best sniper in the world.”

Coulson twitches.

“Think well of yourself?” Fury asks.

“Yes, I do,” Clint says simply.

Fury considers him again, and then nods. “Paperwork first. Coulson can handle getting your gear requisitioned and placed in your quarters while you manage your weapons.”

“Is it a good idea to let him wander the base alone?” Coulson asks, bland but slightly unhappy.

Clint looks at him. “You don’t trust me out of your sight?” he asks coolly.

Fury laughs. He’s got a good laugh, genuine, and kind of contagious. “It’s not you he doesn’t trust. You’re fresh meat, Barton, and he hasn’t had you long enough to have equipped you with anything that might protect you. You’ll probably get some attention. Just don’t kill anyone unless they’re about to kill you. Other than that, you don’t answer to anyone but Phil. You have my enthusiastic permission to smack down anyone who fucks with you.”

“Thank you, Director,” Clint says, while he’s still trying to figure out what Coulson would equip him with to protect him, and why it should be needed at all. These people know the score. Even if they aren’t worried about Clint, they’d be beyond stupid to touch anything that belongs to Coulson.


	4. Chapter 4

Phil takes Barton to Administration to set up his security clearance first. As Adria walks Barton through the process, Phil sets up his laptop and takes care of filling out everything that he hadn’t done on the plane, which isn’t actually that much. He sends requisitions to the Quartermaster for Barton’s gear and takes care of assigning them quarters, so that Barton’s gear can be directly delivered there.

Then he calls in a favor from Sitwell.

“Jasper,” Coulson says.

“Oh God,” Sitwell says. “Is this the transport your sensitive material call? I knew as soon as they said you were taking him on that I was going to get this call.” He sounds despondent. “It’s not that I don’t value our friendship, Phil, but surely there’s someone else who can lug your sex arsenal around the base.”

Coulson smiles faintly. “You don’t have to lug it anywhere,” he soothes. “I just want it packed up and ready to be lugged by the time Barton is off the range. I can get him to lug it. Everything else can wait for tomorrow, while he’s in medical. But…”

“Yeah,” Sitwell sighs. “And how long has it been since you…” Another sigh. “All right. It’s all still where it usually is?”

“It may still all be in boxes,” Phil admits. “I haven’t needed it, so I don’t think I unpacked it the last time I moved to a single. Don’t mess with the stuff under the bed. It’s recreational for me, and it’s all sanitized, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to know what’s in it, anyway.”

“I don’t, except in the trainwreck kind of way,” Sitwell says. “Okay, it’ll probably take me half an hour, just to make sure in case it’s not still packed. I’ll leave it on your bed.”

“I appreciate it,” Phil says, and he does, because no matter what Fury thinks, he has no plans to allow Barton to walk around unprotected without Phil for the next several hours. He will either get a harness on Barton, or he’ll get everything else delegated so he can go to the range with Barton himself. He might do both.

“I should be thanking you, really. I’m reviewing the junior agents’ reports from Barton’s recruitment. They’re all skewed to make themselves look less stupid. It makes me want to shake the truth out of them,” Sitwell grumbles.

“Cheer up,” Phil says. “I’ll have Barton write his own report on everything that happened over there. If we catch them in a lie, you can write them up.”

“Oh, hey,” Sitwell says, and does sound cheered. “Honestly, that would make my week. I’ll owe you one. I’ll owe him one, actually.”

“I’ll get it to you soonest,” Phil promises, and hangs up.

Barton is leaning against the counter with one hip while Adria takes blood for a DNA sample, which means he should be pretty much done.

“They’ll install your tracking device in medical,” Adria is saying. “Then whatever kind of kill switch you want. There are other options, but you’ll have to go over them with your handler.”

Barton stiffens a little without actually straightening up, but is perfectly pleasant when he says, “Yeah, between the capture and the travel, we haven’t talked much about implants. I’m sure he’ll explain it to me.”

Phil suppresses a grimace. He should have realized Barton would not be happy about a tracking device. There’s no choice, of course, and Barton will realize it if he takes a few minutes to think about it, but it doesn’t stop Phil’s internal wince. He should have been the one to tell Barton. He’s already at least partially coerced in several ways in his position. He should be able to trust Phil to warn him if Hill is coming, and that he’ll be expected to submit to a tracking device.

Half of it is the distraction of Barton’s presence. Phil has no acceptable excuse, but it doesn’t change it. Barton is gorgeous, walks like he owns the world, takes Hill to her knees for touching him without permission, makes demands of Fury (which should have gone through Phil, but Phil hasn’t taken the time to explain things like that to him, because he’s _distracted_ ), and is, ultimately, a dream to fuck. Phil hasn’t been able to drag his mind away from how it had felt to be buried in Barton’s ass for more than a few minutes at a time today, and he’s going to get to do it again tonight.

He’s distracted.

“Done?” Phil asks Adria, a little clipped, and she nods quickly, passing across a tablet for Phil to sign off on. Barton follows him out of the office and falls into step beside him.

“Range?” he asks hopefully.

Phil doesn’t smile, but he’d kind of like to. “Paperwork.” He leads Barton into a small conference room with a connector for his laptop so Barton doesn’t have to squint to read. Barton reads the first three pages of the contract, and is visibly and restlessly bored.

“Okay, so it’s in my own best interests that I read this,” Barton says, “but sitting still and parsing legalese is never going to be my strong suit, Coulson. Why don’t you dumb it down for me.”

Phil looks at him for a long moment. “I could lie,” he says bluntly.

“But you won’t,” Barton says almost dismissively. “Just tell me the deal.”

Phil thinks about it for a minute or so, and then begins with, “The basis of the contract is to protect SHIELD from you. It doesn’t allow you complete autonomy for your own protection, as well -- the more you know, the more danger you will always be in -- but it’s really more to protect our secrets. The most pertinent clauses are pretty basic. Every mission is classified to whatever degree that SHIELD deems necessary. Your security clearance will be high because you’re ideal for highly sensitive ops, but that doesn’t mean you have access to information on any other mission. Your focus is narrow. 

“You don’t talk about your missions to anyone but your handler. If your handler has to escalate to Fury or Hill, your handler will let you know. You don’t try to find out about anyone else’s missions. If you need to know, your handler will tell you. You will always be provided with all pertinent information that SHIELD possesses to give you the best chance to successfully complete your mission. We won’t hold things back from you, even if the information seems unlikely to impact a mission. So if you were sent in with a specific target that has nothing to do with Hydra, but we know Hydra has been active in the area, you will be informed of that for your protection. Your handler is the boss of you in almost every sense. Disobeying a direct order from your handler is good for a write up, which will vary in severity depending on circumstances. Even if you have a good reason and the decision you made salvaged a mission, it will still be noted in your file.” He pauses to give Barton a long look. “That’s not a threat. In some cases, those notations will mean that you’ll be considered for missions that require a little more personal discretion or that have more potential for changes in original plans than others.”

“Okay,” Barton says slowly. “I’m clear on what information I can expect.”

“Some part of it handles your interaction with contacts outside SHIELD’s network. We know you have them, and we know you’ll use them if you need to in an emergency, which is why I didn’t just wipe your phone. It’s your responsibility to get yourself out of trouble if the mission goes south. We’ll have options set up for you, exit strategies and backups to those strategies, but sometimes you might not be able to get to those options. Save yourself in any way you can. But while you’re doing it, you are not to provide mission details to anyone outside of SHIELD. We don’t care what you tell them as long as it’s not the truth. A caveat to that, is that while you’re trying to save yourself, we’ll still be trying to recover you. If you share your contacts with us, your chances of surviving multiply. We will never stop looking for you until we find your body. If we lose you, everyone loses. Thus the tracking device.”

“Right, the tracking device,” Barton says, his face a little grim. “You might have mentioned.”

“I should have,” Phil agrees. “I didn’t want to brief you in front of the recruitment team, honestly. A lot of the things I’m telling you are above their pay grade. For example, while they have tracking implants as well, they are simply not valuable enough for us to route endless resources into their retrieval.” Barton’s brows rise. “We’ll do anything in our power, and we’ll keep doing it as long as we can do it without it interfering in other operations, but we still have a job to do here. If I lose you, it’s my entire job to use whatever I can to get you back until you are proven dead. Junior agents tend to be… sensitive. They don’t understand yet that assets and specialists are the backbone of SHIELD, the most valuable members of our organization. Once they figure it out, generally they become field agents.” Phil quirks his lips. “Sometimes it never happens, but they have their uses.”

“Were they all junior agents you sent after me?” Barton wants to know.

“Only the first team,” Phil says. “After that, recovery and recruitment teams and assets.”

Barton looks thoughtful. “Okay, what else?

“That you agree to keep our secrets even if it means dying to do it.”

Barton merely nods, as if that doesn’t bother him. “Kill switches, yeah, I got that.”

“If I am, for whatever reason, taken out of commission for more than seventy-two hours, an interim handler will be assigned to you.” Barton tenses all over, eyes narrowed. Phil is careful to keep his voice even. “That handler will take over your missions and manage you in any way that I would, except that he or she will have no rights to your body. Protocol does not allow an interim handler to interfere in the relationship of a handler and a submissive asset or specialist.”

Barton rolls his eyes, but he’s relaxed considerably. Phil can’t quite keep himself from being pleased.

“I know that’s not what comes naturally to you, but in this capacity you’re acting as my submissive,” Phil says. “At some point, things will change with the times, but as it is, legally and socially, we’re required to abide by these political-military structures.”

“What do you think happened to them?” Barton asks. “All the real submissives, I mean. Other countries still have a good balance. It’s only been a decade and change since things fell so far out of balance. Does SHIELD know?”

“Finding out is one of SHIELD’s primary objectives, but as far as I’m aware we don’t know anything concrete. There’s never been a gene identified as a submissive genome, so it can’t be something as simple as lacing crops or drinking water, which would have had some sort of noticeable death toll attached. What we do know is that disappearances in the U.S. have gone up exponentially in the last ten years, many of them people old enough to have actively identified as submissive, but not old enough to have received aptitude tests to help sort them into fields they’d excel in. At least thirty percent of those losses have come directly out of the armed forces.”

“Someone is taking them?” Barton asks sharply, eyes a little wide. “Just… just the size of that kind of conspiracy is almost impossible.”

Phil nods. “We know. We’re still looking. But in the meantime, we need people that fulfill the roles submissives typically fill, and so the cross-training.” Phil resists the urge to shrug. He doesn’t exactly approve of the training, he doesn’t completely agree with SHIELD not changing how things are run, at least temporarily, but that’s not his decision. The Council are used to their subs, and won’t make a move that might remove their right to them. And Phil is the worst kind of hypocrite, because he is a strong dominant, and while he doesn’t force his sexual dynamic onto anyone he isn’t personally handling unless they’re interested, he’s fully prepared to do it to Barton. He can’t imagine _not_ doing it to Barton. He’s never met anyone that’s done it for him so fast and so hard, and as long as Barton is his, Phil is going to treat him like a submissive. He’ll make allowances, because he’s not a total bastard, but. He isn’t trying to fool himself, either.

“I haven’t had the cross-over training,” Barton says flatly. “Is that something I’m going to have to do?”

“You’ve acted in a submissive capacity before though, for Trickshot, even though you were years too young for him to legally collar. Unless things between us just don’t work, I have no desire to put you through that.” It’s true; Barton would hate it. But it’s also true that it would drive Phil insane to put Barton into hands other than his own.

“There’s a lot I didn’t learn,” Barton says slowly. “And there are still things I won’t do, even if I find them out. Are you saying you’re willing to negotiate on this?”

“If there is ever something that I feel strongly enough to insist on, you will do as I say,” Phil says evenly. “But while I don’t understand all of your specific limitations, I understand that you have them. I don’t plan on making your life hell, Barton. We have to work together; I want things to be easy between us. So I’ll keep in mind that there are things you may never want, but I’m asking you to keep in mind that there are things I _need_ , and that when those things come out, I want your word that you will at least consider them as options.”

“I… I agree. You have my word,” Barton says; his cheeks are slightly flushed. “What else?”

Phil has to drag his mind away from the part of the contract that means he gets to fuck Barton at will and back to the part that is pertinent.

“Really the only thing left is your interaction with other agents and operatives,” Phil says. “You are going to be harassed,” he says bluntly. “You’re wearing a submissive collar around your throat. You’re gorgeous, you’re new, maybe you don’t know all the rules yet, maybe you have a handler that isn’t strict about protocol in that way, maybe you’re willing to risk a reprimand and act outside of protocol yourself, or maybe someone just can’t resist. It’s going to happen. So here are your options for handling that. If it’s verbal or minor physical, such as just plain touching, and it happens more than three times, you’ll bring it to me. If it’s physical in any way that involves sexual touching, you may choose to beat the perpetrator unconscious. Whether you do or not, you will bring that to me, as well. If anyone tries to undress you with the intention of sexually abusing you, you can engage with lethal force. If you do this, stay where you are and call security and me immediately. If you are ever actually forced, I will personally beat the perpetrator to death.” Barton’s eyes flash wide for a moment, and then regard Phil seriously.

Barton lowers his gaze and swallows visibly. “Well, at least I know you’ll protect me,” he says. “I was… I had unrealistic expectations with Trickshot.”

“You were young,” Phil says quietly. “Is there anything I haven’t covered that you want to know about?”

“I know you have R&D working on a bow,” Barton says, without looking up at Phil, which is not quite right. “Am I going to be allowed to use it?”

“On any mission that it’s practical for you to do so,” Phil assures him. “The rumor is that you’re perfect with a gun in your hands and supernatural with a bow.”

Barton looks up and grins. “Wait and see; you won’t believe it.”

“They’re excited about it,” Phil tells him. “I doubt it will take them more than a couple more days for the prototype. You should have heard the brainstorming going on about your quiver.” Barton cocks a brow, still grinning, and Phil goes on. “Poisoned arrow heads, grappling lines, explosives, EMPs.”

Barton’s eyes start to look a little dreamy. “I’ll have to learn the weight and arc and trajectory for each type,” he murmurs. “They’ll have to make each type exactly alike. I can compensate for heavier heads for something explosive, as long it’s the same amount of compensation every time.”

Phil is smiling. He can’t help himself. Barton looks almost turned on.

“Come on, sign this,” Phil says, sliding the tablet to Barton. “It’s also got your salary and whatnot on it, but I didn’t think you cared that much. I’ll whittle the whole thing down to a few plain English pages, and you can look it over again just in case I missed anything that you have a strong objection to.”

Barton signs the tablet, and Phil submits the contract and disconnects it from the monitor.

“Range?” Barton asks again, and Phil is almost tempted to let him go, he sounds so hopeful; Phil can always go take care of packing up the rest of his own quarters. But. But.

“Quarters,” he says instead. “You have a lot of options if someone tries anything with you, but the truth is, prevention is in the best interests of both of us.”

“What does that mean?” Barton asks.

Hopefully Barton will accept what Phil has in mind. He doesn’t want to force him, but he will.

“It means I have the means to protect you, at least to some extent, and I don’t want you to have to beat anyone to death your first night here,” Phil says firmly.

Barton says nothing; when Phil looks over at him, his eyes are down and his cheeks are a little pink again. Phil wants to bite every inch of him; it feels like he’s exerting superhuman force not to shove Barton against a wall and let himself do whatever comes into his head to do.

Instead, he directs them to Phil’s quarters. There are a pair of boxes on the bed, unlabelled, but Phil has a pretty solid recollection of their contents. “Grab a box,” Phil says, and Barton picks one up. Phil takes the other, and leads them back out his soon to be ex-front door, down the corridor and around the corner to the hall where the joint quarters are mostly located.

Phil presses his thumb to the lock and hopes they’ve already been programmed -- he’d requested urgent access, but his idea of urgent isn’t always the same as some others’ -- and the door slides open on a spacious living room area. There is furniture, there is a kitchenette, there’s a pantry, and Phil gives it all a cursory glance while Barton rubbernecks behind him. “We’ll look at it later,” Phil says. “If you want to hit the range tonight, I want to outfit you now.”

When Phil looks up, Barton is full-on blushing, his eyes a little bright with fear or excitement. Phil can’t tell which, and honestly, either of them turn him on. Phil leads him into the bedroom, silently delighted by the size of the bed and the equipment built into it, but he just shoves his box on top of a bureau and cracks the lid on it impatiently. Barton shoves his box up beside Phil’s, and doesn’t ask for permission to look inside.

 _Typical,_ Phil thinks, but he’s amused. And it turns out Barton finds what Phil had been looking for first.

He tugs the belt free of the box, shaking loose a butt plug that had got hung up on it, and just looks at it for a few long moments. That’s dandy with Phil, because he gets to look at Barton looking at it, and watch him blush and swallow and lick his lips.

“I’m not sure how I’ll fight in this,” Barton finally says hoarsely.

Phil relaxes. It not only isn’t an objection, but also indicates that Barton had already at least had a guess as to the means Phil would use to protect him.

“You won’t wear it into the field,” Phil says. “Are you worried about your accuracy on the range?”

Barton gives him a narrow look. “ _Nothing_ affects my accuracy. I’m talking about physical, hand-to-hand altercations.”

“We’ll see to that in your training,” Phil says. He takes the belt and works open the lock in the front. “Strip,” he says, and looks up in time to see Barton’s hands clench into fists, his face go red, and his eyes squeeze shut. But he starts with his boots and works his way up, hands steady and quick.

Phil watches him show himself to Phil one slice of skin at a time, and it’s easy to forget that it isn’t deliberate, it’s not easy acceptance and obedience, that, for Barton, it’s just necessary. And Phil would love to pretend it matters to him, but right now it just doesn’t.

Intellectually, he sympathizes with Barton’s situation. Physically and psychologically, however, Phil wants him badly, and he’ll take Barton through this loophole in the law. If not Phil, someone else would have him. Why shouldn’t it be him? In a very real sense, Phil had captured and claimed him. It’s only fair.

“Spread your legs,” Phil says huskily, and reaches into the first box for a tube of lube.

Barton does. He has his eyes closed and is breathing deeply, but Phil can see the shivering of his muscles. He’s completely gorgeous.

He’s also rock hard.

Phil sucks in a little sound of surprise and almost loses his grip on the belt, which won’t do anyone any good at all while Barton is erect.

“Sorry,” Barton breathes. “Trained response.”

Phil wants to ask, but doesn’t want to rip at Barton’s old wounds, either. And there is something not quite right about that, but Phil’s body responds too hard to it to worry about what it is.

Barton reminds Phil of Ben. They had been in the Marines together, sweet, earnest Ben, who had been the only real submissive Phil has ever been with. He doesn’t have Ben’s artlessness, or that easy obedience. He isn’t open the way Ben was, but there’s something about him that makes Phil think of him.

But Clint Barton had been collared and trained at fifteen. Lessons learned that early were hard to unlearn, even after years, even after he’d killed the man that had used him like that and escaped into the shadows. He thinks about Trickshot making Barton-the-boy wear a belt like this to train him, and almost wants to let it go.

He’d like to tell himself there is too much of Barton’s safety at stake not to use a chastity device; it’s even true. But seeing him hard at the idea of the belt, no matter how he’d been trained to respond that way, is more than Phil can take.

“Lie down on the bed,” Phil says, and Barton backs up without opening his eyes. His knees hit the mattress and he sits and then pulls himself further up on his elbows until he finds the pillows and lies back. He’s visibly shaking now, his hands digging into the sheets, but his eyes are open again. He staring at Phil like he’s afraid of what Phil will do, his eyes wide and a little glassy. Phil climbs onto the bed -- Barton spreads his legs automatically, and Phil’s belly twists with heat. “Put your knees up,” he instructs, and Barton does it at once.

Phil flips the cap on the lube and spills a little of it down the gradually widening spheres of the plug, narrow at the top, each sphere flowing into the next, wider sphere to make a solid plug. He flips the cap closed and sets the lube aside. 

“Knees wider,” Phil says, and Barton spreads wider, staring still, though now he’s dividing his attention between Phil and the plug. Phil dips his hand down and slides a hand under Barton’s balls -- Barton flinches, but doesn’t try to pull away -- lifting them just enough to slide the tip of the plug against Barton’s hole. Barton sucks in a shuddering breath, but he relaxes, too, and Phil takes the time to slide the plug into him one sphere at a time until Barton is breathing hard. He’d like to take the time to fuck him with it -- he clearly likes it, and Phil would love to watch it -- but he doesn’t doubt for a moment that Barton will still want his range time, so Phil dips his head down instead and slips his mouth around the head of Barton’s cock.

Barton makes an absolutely shocked sound, his whole body tensing; Phil tugs just the last sphere free and goes down further on Barton’s cock as he pushes it back in. The sound Barton makes twists in Phil’s guts like white hot wires, a low groaning, almost a begging sound. Phil glances up and sees naked pleasure on Barton’s face, uncomplicated wanting, and has to look away before he drags the plug out of Barton’s ass and shoves his cock inside instead. There will be time for that. For right now, just this, and Phil is bizarrely glad it had happened this way, just to listen to Barton moan as Phil sucks his cock, and to hear the way his breath hitches whenever Phil tugs at the plug inside him.

It doesn’t take Barton long to come. The whole thing, start to finish, maybe lasts three minutes, and then Barton is groaning, throaty and rough, and his back arches beautifully as he comes in Phil’s mouth. Barton collapses back onto the bed, panting, and Phil licks him clean, and then draws the front of the belt up, sliding Barton’s balls through the ring and slipping his cock into the steel cage. He draws the belt around Barton’s hips, and slips the little lock into place and clicks it shut, and then just draws back to look at Barton, sprawled across the bed, his face almost peaceful, a smile touching his lips, as Barton looks back at Phil.

“Thank you,” Barton says, voice throaty and sincere. “I thought you were going to hurt me.”

That flinch when Phil had touched his balls. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist.

“I’m… only a little bit of a sadist,” Phil says. “I might hurt you at some point, but you’re much more likely to get your smart ass spanked than to get me to do anything more painful than that -- unless it’s something you want that you’re willing to ask me for.”

Phil waits for Barton to mention Phil’s cock in conjunction with pain, but he doesn’t.

He says, “Range?” hopefully.

Phil laughs, quick and then shuts it down; it had snuck up on him.

Barton grins in response, and then surprises Phil by fondling himself thoroughly through the belt. “Is there… do you.” He pauses for a moment and takes a breath. “Is this plug built into the belt, or can it be changed out?”

“I’ve got several to fit this belt,” Phil says, puzzled. “Why?”

Barton shrugs one extremely muscular shoulder. “Because a bigger one might make it easier for you to fuck me.”

Phil blinks, but says, “We can try something else tomorrow. If you want range time tonight, you should come get dressed.”

Phil backs his way off the foot of the bed and Barton follows him, quick and agile. For a second he’s just standing there in nothing but the belt, and he looks perfect, depraved and perfect, his sex bound down at Phil’s hands. The black leather around his waist is an insult, and even flaccid, his cock nearly fills the cage. Phil circles around him to see the leather strap that runs the length of the crack of his ass, just as perfect.

Barton stands still, obviously aware that Phil is looking. “What do you think?” he says, smirking a little over his shoulder. “Is it my color?”

“Beautiful deadly,” Phil says absently. “May I call you Clint?”

Barton, now hustling his way back into his clothes, looks a little puzzled. “Sure,” he says. “I’m assuming I can’t call you Phil?”

“No,” Phil says. Then he considers for a moment. “In bed, only.”

Clint grins broadly.

Phil slips his fingers into the pocket of his jacket and brings out the silver disc Hill had dropped into his palm. “This needs to go on your collar,” Phil says neutrally.

“What is it?” Clint asks.

“It’s a microchip embedded with your security clearances and access codes. You’ll need it to access certain areas of the base. It’s also my temporary mark, so if you’re unconscious for whatever reason, they know who to call.”

Clint’s expression is blank. “You’ll have to unlock it,” is all he says.

Phil gets up and moves around Clint to unlock the collar, but he passes the tag to Clint and lets Clint thread it through himself and then lock the collar again himself. The second time doesn’t make it easier, but Phil says nothing.

“Now the range?” Clint asks, and Phil nods to hide a small smile.

Clint takes to walking in the harness in less than a minute. If Phil hadn’t locked it on him with his own hands, he would have sworn Clint didn’t have anything on under his pants except underwear. Phil has never met anyone so muscular who was also so smoothly graceful. And he paces Phil again, accepting the chastity harness without a word of argument, but refusing to let anyone believe for a second that Clint thinks he’s in some way less than Phil.

He whistles all the way to the range.

It occurs to Phil, maybe a little belatedly (but understandably considering the conditions of their first acquaintance), that Clint is a naturally ebullient person. That given any reason to be, he’s energetic and cheerful. He’s got a sharply dry sense of humor (or that’s what Phil has seen of it so far), and that even when Phil had had him bound to the bed last night, he had been mostly unbowed.

Phil _likes_ him.

He’s not prepared to decide if that’s good or bad, this soon.

Clint almost skip-hops to the wall of weaponry and begins taking things down. His backups he’ll have to get from the Quartermaster, who is watching the whole thing dubiously, though he nods a greeting to Phil.

“Clear this room,” Phil tells the Quartermaster. “You stick around, but at this point, the specialist’s capabilities are above everyone else’s paygrade.”

The Quartermaster flips a switch, and a series of red lights flash on along the length of the range. Phil can hear people grumbling and gathering their things; they’re probably throwing filthy looks at Clint, but if they are, Clint is completely oblivious.

“Hello, beautiful,” Clint murmurs, running his hands over a Cheyenne Tactical M200 Intervention Rifle, his fingers light and reverent. He sets it aside and runs his hands over a SIG 50 anti-material rifle. “Anything that can blow a hole in an armored car,” he murmurs, and pulls it down off the rack to sit with the Cheyenne.

“The Cheyenne instead of the Thor?” Phil asks and Clint cocks his head.

“They’re basically the same rifle, and the Cheytac still has range on the Thor. Besides, it’s a better size for my hands,” he says almost absently. “Not that I wouldn’t use the Thor, but it’s about more than firepower or range. It has to be something I can disassemble, reassemble in rough terrain and in compromised conditions, position and hold for extremely long stretches of time. It has to be something I can switch out sights with if necessary. And the SIG… well, if I have to shoot someone _through_ something, it’s the anti-material rifle I’m most familiar with, so that’s the way to go.”

“You think you can hit a target through something with military grade armor on it and maintain accuracy?” the Quartermaster wants to know.

Clint grins. “Agent Coulson will bet you a hundred bucks that I can,” he says. “I’d do it myself, but I don’t have a hundred bucks.”

Phil shrugs. “If he says he can, he can,” he says, and believes it completely.

“Let me set you something up,” the Quartermaster says, and lets himself out of the cage. He hands the keys to Phil.

“And the Steyr Scout Tact, I think,” Clint says, running his hands over the smaller, lighter weapon with just as much care. “Nice and lightweight, for missions where pitching the gun is more likely than not. Or for when I’m in trees. Man,” he turns to tell Phil, “you would be shocked at how many sniper rifles are not at all suited to trees. Climbing a tree with a SIG 50 on your back? And then just finding a place to anchor everything. Nightmare.” He takes the smaller rifle down and sets it with the others.

And then, more quickly than Phil can really follow -- and Phil is a senior field agent, he can follow _very_ quickly -- Clint is disassembling, checking, and reassembling each gun. All three take him under a minute fifteen.

Phil has a hard on.

“Okay, so what do you want first? Rifles or handguns?” Clint asks.

“You don’t want to pick your handguns?” Coulson asks.

Clint shrugs. “You gave me SIGs, which I like already, but it’s a range thing. I want to practice with six specific handguns, but it doesn’t matter much to me which six they are. I can snipe with a handgun if I have to, but chances are if I’m using my sidearm, I’m within a few hundred yards, and I can hit anything at that distance with anything I have on me. If I have a slingshot, I can hit at least a couple hundred yards.”

Phil’s lips quirk, and he briefly reflects on the fact that Clint doesn’t seem to be good for his poker face, which is supposed to be the stuff of legends.

“Why not the Cheyenne, then,” Phil says.

“How deep is this range?” Clint jokes.

“Two miles?” Phil says, not actually all that certain. The standard practice distance is between eight hundred and a thousand yards. If you can do better, you’re a sharpshooter.

Clint gives him a wide eyed look. “Coulson, I can make a two mile shot with the Cheytac. It’s not even a question. I could do it from a tree in the dark while it’s sleeting in my face.”

Phil looks at his face, and believes him. “Prove it here. I’ll get special dispensation to get you onto an outside range within the week.”

Clint grumbles, but double checks his gun, accepts the ear guards Phil snaps onto him, and aims for approximately two seconds before emptying his magazine into the target. He walks down to the next lane and does it again. He walks down to the next lane and does it again. As he starts back, he tags the buttons to reel in the targets. He is sulking.

And he’s right to be. Perfect head shots in a perfect circle on every target.

“What is the Steyr? Eight hundred yards?” Phil asks curiously.

Clint grins, sulkiness forgotten. “Yeah, it’s not a big boy, but it weighs seven pounds and doesn’t kick at all,” he says.

“How far would you be willing to try it at?” Phil asks.

Clint ponders this for a long moment. “Give me one shot at a twelve hundred, and I’ll get back to you.”

Phil watches Clint set the range, heft the gun, glare at the target, and then he goes perfectly still in a way that Phil has never witnessed. When the shot rings out, Phil is almost startled. 

Clint reels in the target and looks at the face shot. “I could push it out maybe two hundred more yards,” he says seriously. “But knowing how good I am in here hardly means anything, you know that, right? The lighting is perfect, there’s no wind, I’m standing with both feet planted on the floor. This isn’t how I work. I wouldn’t want to get used to thinking I could hit with the Steyr at a twelve or fourteen hundred yards when in the field, I’m going to try to be within six hundred, eight at most. Twelve hundred or more only if my target is about to shoot you in the head.” He spreads one hand. “I’ve got to respect the limitations of my equipment unless my only choice is to shoot and pray. I won’t use the Steyr for anything but low density urban targets with a clear nest, but that’s what it’s for. So you don’t have to worry about anyone seeing you toting a twenty or thirty pound long rifle case at three in the morning when you’re trying to set up. If I’m doing something else, I’ll take the Cheytac. And if my goal is to wreak havoc in a military encampment, I’ll take the 50. It’s about knowing what tools to take with you, and that’s what you’re for.” Then he grins again. “Besides, these are all loaded on the low end. I want something in writing that says I am automatically issued the highest grade cartridge the rifle will fire.”

“I’ll make that happen,” Phil says seriously. “I’ll have it by the time you get out of medical tomorrow.”

To Phil’s amazement, Clint’s cheeks flush pink. He turns away and places the Steyr with the Cheytac on the bench, and then hefts the 50. A few seconds after he does, Phil hears the huff of slightly labored breathing as the Quartermaster jogs back down the range.

“All right, put his money where your mouth is, kid,” the Quartermaster says, and gestures them to the far end of the range. The set up is an armored car that Phil can only hope was not requisitioned off the lot, though he’s willing to bet not; at the very least, they would have heard the motor.

“Nice,” Clint says, bright-eyed. “Commando V-150.” Clint immediately starts to line up a shot. “Shouldn’t be much chance of an actual explosion.”

“You know that rifle is only good up to fifteen hundred yards, right?” the Quartermaster asks.

“I know what the specs say,” Clint says evenly.

“Don’t you want to know how many occupants?” the Quartermaster asks.

“Doesn’t matter,” Clint says, and there’s that moment of stillness, and then an enormous amount of noise, partially because none of them are wearing ear protection, and partially because Clint has blown a hole the size of a garbage can lid _through_ the body of the car, on the diagonal. Phil can see mannequin heads and arms and legs everywhere.

“I’ll be damned,” the Quartermaster says, and then goes over to investigate. He kicks around in the smoky wreckage for several seconds, and then kicks a lopsided mannequin head over to Phil. It’s marked with what’s left of a big red X. Part of it has been blasted away. “That was my driver,” he says. “Didn’t look likely that there were any other survivors, either.” He squints at Clint. “That things was parked twenty-five hundred yards back,” he says.

“Pre-test range on the 50 showed it at fifteen hundred yards,” Clint says easily. “But I’ve fired this gun before. They short changed it. It ought to be at least two thousand, and stretching it another five hundred is just a matter of geometry, in near perfect conditions. But I had a great time shooting your mini-tank, so I think Coulson will be willing to call it even.”

The Quartermaster looks a Phil, who waves it away. “He’s going to want three of each of these guns that no one else touches,” Phil says. “He’s also going to need four more standard issue firearms. For right now, just put it all aside for him, and we’ll get them in a couple of days. He needs loading from the top tier, all the time, no exceptions. I’ll have that to you in writing tomorrow.”

The Quartermaster is nodding along. When Phil stops, he asks, “Anything customized? I can get whatever he needs.”

Phil glances at Clint, who shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. “Better if I get them right out of the box. That way I know that what mine can do, any other one like mine can do.”

“You’re the strangest damned sniper I’ve ever met,” the Quartermaster says, in a tone of wary admiration.

Clint grins at him. “I’ll need at least one more rifle, twelve to fifteen thousand yard range, but I don’t see what I’m after. Can you get your hands on a Sako TRG-42, or, I guess three of them? I’ll want at least two other models, but I want to think more about what I need for what I’m doing. I may hold off on badgering you for them until I have a few missions to work data from. The handguns, though, you can specialize those all to hell as long as all the specializations are identical.” The Quartermaster grins, clearly pleased at that. “I didn’t get your name,” Clint says, and sticks his hand out. “Clint Barton.”

“Agent Kennet,” the Quartermaster replies. “But Quartermaster is fine. I’m used to it.”

Clint gives a brief nod, and Phil knows Clint will go out of his way to address the Quartermaster by his rank and name from this point on; further, Phil knows that he’ll probably do the same.

“Anything special I should know about?” Clint asks obliquely.

“I might be able to find you some things you couldn’t have got your hands on yet,” Agent Kennet says. “Things still in development. Could actually use someone with your skill to set the bars on things like that.”

Clint looks like he’s trying to conceal his glee. “I’ve got things for the next day or two, but if Coulson can spare me, I’d be happy to help.”

“We’ll work it out,” Phil says, bemused. The two of them are staring at each other in happy compatibility. Phil wouldn’t dream of not allowing Clint anything that is likely to make him more happy to be at SHIELD. “In the meantime, you’ve got medical early,” he reminds Clint. “Let Agent Kennet start getting your kits together.”

“I’m around noon to midnight,” Kennet tells Clint casually. “But I’m ranking, so if it’s an emergency, call me out.” They shake hands and smile at each other, and eventually break away, Kennet disappearing with Clint’s choices, and Clint falling into step with Phil.

“I have never seen anything like that,” Phil says as they walk back toward their quarters, trying, and probably failing, not to sound as impressed as he actually is. He isn’t talking out of his ass, either; Phil has experience with rifles, a lot of it. “ _I_ was a sharpshooter in the Marines, and I was probably half as good as you on my best day if you were having your _worst_ day.”

Clint grins. “And this isn’t what I really do, you know. The guns. They’re something I can do. I have the knack for them, but that’s just training. The range on the bow won’t be anything like that, but I could give you a nick as shallow as a papercut on your left ring-finger knuckle with the bow. It’s all about precision and skill and speed. Those guns are fun toys, but they’re not the same kind of tool.”

“I know they’re working on the range of the bow, but I don’t know what limitations they’re working within, really,” Phil says. “I don’t know how you can do _that_ and then dismiss it so casually for a weapon centuries old.”

“It’s centuries old for a reason, but let me just give you a for instance. Let’s say we’re in Kabul, at the American base, and there’s an incursion. Confusion everywhere. People on the ground cutting each other down, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident, but everybody with a gun. Now put me somewhere up high on a perch with a bow. I can identify the good guys from the bad guys instantaneously via manner of dress, and I can pick the bad guys off in absolute silence. If we went back through and triaged that scene, the numbers would look like this: 15 soldiers, hostile fire; 6 soldiers, friendly fire; 30-36 hostiles, American kills, 75 hostiles, arrows through their throats.”

Phil considers that. “That’s not a ‘for instance,’ is it?” he asks.

Clint shrugs, lips quirked. “I’ve never officially been to Kabul, and even if I had been, it wouldn’t have been to get involved in any kind of mass casualty attack. It could be done with the Cheytac, Coulson, but think of the noise. And I’m fast. I’m faster than you even think you can imagine right now.”

“Why didn’t you have your bow on you in Norway?” Phil asks.

“Lost it going through an ice cavern with a quick moving river,” Clint says, bizarrely cheerfully. “I have another one stashed there, if I’m ever back that way.”

Phil laughs. “This is the part you don’t know you can’t imagine right now,” he says. “Once R&D builds you a bow from the ground up, one made exactly for you in every detail, you’re never going to want another bow again.”

Clint flashes Phil a sideways look, curious, excited, intent. “I make my own, you know. It’s a skill I don’t want to lose.”

“You do all the machining and everything?” Phil asks, and Clint nods. “Then once we’ve got a working model, we’ll see what we can do about keeping your hands in the production. It’ll be different. A lot of computer hardware you won’t be used to working with. But if you want to learn, I’ll support you with Fury.”

Clint nods, face slightly averted, though Phil can still see the curl of his smile. By the time they reach their quarters, it’s faded, though, and Phil can’t see enough of his face to read him. He gestures for Clint to use the thumb lock, which works just as well for him as it had for Phil.

Phil stands with his back to the door and watches Clint prowl their quarters for a minute, opening and closing things, checking closets, flipping aside a curtain to take a quick glance outside.

Then Phil makes his way to the bedroom and takes his time getting undressed, hanging his suit. He’ll have to make a trip back to his old quarters for toiletries and clothes in the morning. Clint has things, at least, four sets of tactical gear hanging in the closet, jeans and t-shirts with SHIELD emblazoned on them in the dresser. Two pairs of boots and a pair of athletic shoes. A vinyl bag of toiletries of his own, which Clint is looking at, but not unpacking.

“We’ll have to talk about your armor,” Phil says, as casually as he can in the slightly tense atmosphere.

Clint glances up with a spark of interest.

“We’re not sending you out in standard tact gear, especially not if your weapon of choice is a bow. I’m guessing long sleeves will be in your way?”

“Any sleeves will be in my way,” Clint says, and slowly starts stripping off his boots. “I mean, I can do it, but ideally, at least if I’m going somewhere at least moderately temperate, a vest would be best. It can’t be too rigid, though. It’s got to be able to move with me.”

“We’ve designed some armored vests with pretty versatile movement by making the armored plates shift inside the vest. We’ll try some of those out on you and see what you need to make it better.” Phil watches Clint unbutton his shirt and lay it aside, and then unzip the bag of toiletries, sorting through soaps and shampoos and razors with apparent interest. He’s patient while Clint juggles things out of the bag and disappears into the bathroom with them.

Clint is stalling, but he’s not being too obsessive about it. He’s only in the bathroom for a minute or so. Then he strips off his socks and pants. Phil can see the bulges of the belt, still hidden by Clint’s underwear, evocative enough to make Phil want him more. Phil takes out the key, and gestures to Clint with it.

Clint skins down his underwear and walks almost-casually into Phil’s space, his face calm but a little flushed. Phil tips the key into the lock, and thinks he can guess why Clint is blushing; his cock is already trying to get hard in the cage.

The belt, for whatever reason, seems to really do it for Clint.

Phil unlocks the belt and carefully tugs the cage away, slides the ring out from behind his balls, and then slips his fingers up to grip at the base of the plug, tugging it slowly free of Clint’s body. Clint makes a breathy noise, but is otherwise cooperative. Phil sets it aside to sanitize, and then drags one of the boxes over to sort through. He finds several plugs and lines them up next to the belt. “Those all fit that belt. If you don’t find anything you like, we can buy whatever you’d be comfortable in.”

Clint picks up a short, thick plug, wide all the way around the base. It’s not a match for Phil in girth, but he sees the reasoning behind the choice.

“Tomorrow,” Phil agrees. “Come to bed.”

Clint sighs. He climbs onto the bed and kneels in the middle, facing the headboard. After a moment, he tips himself forward onto his hands and knees and spreads his legs.

It’s almost too much to resist, but Phil has been thinking about this all day. Since last night, actually, when he hadn’t seen Clint’s face after.

“You seemed fairly okay with bondage last night,” Phil says.

“I didn’t have a lot of choice last night,” Clint says, voice clipped. But then he shakes his head and says, “It doesn’t upset me.”

Which isn’t the same thing as ‘I like it,’ but Phil isn’t sure he’d admit to it even if he does like it. So far, Clint has only really been open about his preferences in weaponry and his admiration of Phil’s car.

“On your back would be better, then,” Phil says.

Clint doesn’t move for the space of several heartbeats, and then flips smoothly over onto his back in the middle of the bed. His cock is hard, and Phil is fairly sure that Clint hadn’t wanted Phil to know that.

Phil searches around in a box until he finds a hand-tooled leather collar, thick with padding, and a pair of matching cuffs. He has to dig further to find the thigh cuffs, and then to the other box altogether to find the matching leather bridle straps that attach to the rings on the collar and cuffs, two short for the wrists, two longer for the thighs.

Clint is watching him intently as Phil gathers it all up together and tumbles it onto Clint’s belly. Phil buckles the restraints around Clint’s wrists and then the others around the big muscles of his thighs -- Clint flexes against them without seeming to realize he’s doing it -- and then shows Clint the collar. “This is for sex,” Phil says, though he’s skating along the verge of a lie. “It doesn’t have a lock at all; just a buckle.” He watches Clint look at it for a moment. “Can I put it on you?” Phil finally asks, working hard not to show Clint how much he wants to be the one to do it. Clint glances up at him for a moment, his face a little pale.

“If I let you do this now, it doesn’t mean you get to do it any time you want to,” Clint says slowly. “Whether or not you put any kind of collar on me is always _my_ decision.”

“Agreed,” Phil says softly, and Clint pushes himself up onto his elbows and tips his chin down. Phil forces his hands to move slow and steady as he winds the leather around Clint’s neck and buckles it there with a little flare of satisfaction. Clint lies back, and Phil isn’t sure what is showing on his face, but Clint seems almost hypnotized by it. There’s a faint flush in his cheeks again, and his tongue slips out and slicks his bottom lip. 

Phil’s lust roars at him to move faster, and Phil ignores it with some effort.

He shows Clint the bridle straps, clicking them open to show that they don’t lock either, and Clint makes no move to protest when Phil clips his wrists to either side of his collar. Then he tucks a thumb under one of the thigh restraints and draws it up, using another strap to clip the thigh restraint to Clint’s wrist. He repeats it on the other side, which leaves Clint on his back, his wrists on either side of the pillow he’s resting his head on, and his knees drawn up to his chest.

“Why not the bolts on the bed?” Clint asks hoarsely.

“Because you don’t really trust me yet. You couldn’t reach all the bolts to unclip yourself. I _will_ use them, Clint. Probably soon. But you’ve had a long day, and it doesn’t cost me anything to let you control the extent of your freedom.” Which is all true, but is also a lie.

He wants to see Clint take it without trying to get away. And then later, he wants to see Clint take it without giving him the option. And he wants that because he wants to know which one of those actually drives Clint into… into whatever amount of submission Clint has the capacity to feel.

Clint stares at him for a few long seconds. “Then stretch me,” he says finally, almost a whisper.

Phil has the lube in his hand already, and doesn’t really even hesitate. He opens it and drizzles a healthy amount onto his fingers, and slips them down behind Clint’s balls, stroking them slick across his hole. Clint’s whole body shivers, but he looks a little perplexed even as Phil is gently pressing a finger up against his hole.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” Clint asks, and then gasps and jerks slightly as Phil slides a finger into him.

“I know why,” Phil says. He’s not blind to the fact that even if he’s gentle, without stretching his partner out, he’s a rough ride. He likes it, he likes the struggle of it, but he doesn’t have to have it every time.

Clint kicks his arm with the side of his foot, startling Phil into looking up at him. He’s got a tiny sliver of a grin on his face. “You don’t know why,” he says. “Ask me why.”

Something kicks Phil’s heart up against the inside of his chest, something about that look on Clint’s face. “Why?” he asks.

“It was good,” Clint says, flushed, voice a little dark confession. “Last night was good. But I want to know what it feels like when you can slide right in. You won’t be able to, this first time. It’ll still be hard to take. But two hours from now…”

Phil gives him a single dazed blink. Clint’s lips quirk a little more.

“You don’t even have to wake me up first,” he murmurs. “Just use lots of lube.”

Phil feels himself flush, not embarrassment but silver-sharp lust. He’s never had the chance to do that, he leaves his partners so sore after that it had never been an option. The idea of waking Clint up by sliding his cock into his still slick and open body makes Phil’s blood race.

“You’ll be plenty sore tomorrow,” Phil warns, but he’s already pressing another finger into Clint’s ass. Clint makes a little hissing sound, but Phil can feel him relaxing deliberately around Phil’s fingers so that they slide right in.

“Worth it,” Clint says huskily.

Phil twists his fingers around to bump up against Clint’s prostate in reward. Clint groans hoarsely, rocking his hips up, and this position is worth it just to see Clint spread out for him like this, and watching his fingers working their way into Clint’s body, while Clint pants and whines, is almost mesmerizing. Phil pulls his fingers free -- Clint lets out a little growling sound of disatisfaction that is almost feline -- and adds more lube, pressing as much of it as he can up into Clint at least three times before he adds a third finger. Clint’s muscles go taut.

“Wait,” Clint whispers. “Stop a minute.”

“Are you hurt?” Phil asks.

Clint chuckles. “No. I’m close.”

Phil considers that, and then presses his fingers into Clint again, twisting his wrist until he finds his prostate again, and then fingerfucks him with all of his attention. Clint lets out a choking, confused sound of protest, like he isn’t sure he wants to object, but it’s the principle of the thing, and then arches his back and comes across his belly without Phil laying a finger on his cock.

“Jesus, Clint,” Phil says, and leans forward over his fingers still stroking gently into Clint’s ass to swipe his tongue through the spatters of come on his belly. “Jesus,” he murmurs into Clint’s slightly sweat-salty skin.

“Just seeing you do that makes me want to come again,” Clint says a little blurrily. “Like you can do anything you want, and it doesn’t make you seem any less dominant because of it.”

“I can do anything I want,” Phil says with a sharp little smile, pulling back, pulling his fingers back, and adding lube one more time. Clint makes a sighing sound as Phil presses them back into his ass. “Make a list.”

Clint smirks, eyes closed as he breathes heavily.

Phil pulls his fingers carefully free of Clint, and then slicks his own cock, finally, which jumps against his grip. He braces one arm beside Clint’s bound wrist, and slips the head of his cock against Clint’s hole. Clint shudders, and Phil can feel the flutter of his hole against the tip of his cock and has to force himself still. 

He goes slow; he always starts slow. But Clint is worked at least partially open for him, and only lets out a short, harsh cry as the head of Phil’s cock breaches him. Phil works an unprecedented three inches into Clint’s body with only a few rough little pain noises from Clint, and then tugs back, giving him those three inches in slow, easy strokes. Clint’s mouth is pink and open and panting, but his eyes are intent. Phil understands why when Clint manages to bow his body up and forward enough so that he can see Phil’s cock sinking into him, and then Clint makes an unintelligible little noise, his whole body shuddering harshly. His eyes are huge and vulnerable looking and fascinated.

“You should see how it looks from behind,” Phil tells him, thoughtless, and Clint glances up at him. “It… it’s wide enough to press the cheeks of your ass apart. It looks like it shouldn’t be possible.”

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” Clint mumbles, and then drops back down onto his back. “God, just…” he demands, and Phil presses in further. Clint bites back a cry, his face tight with pain, but his cock is hard against his belly again, and Phil still isn’t in all that deep, but he takes a minute to enjoy the way Clint’s noises twist with both pleasure and pain. Clint whines when Phil pulls back to add more lube, and then lets out a shout that is almost a scream when Phil puts more effort into pushing in deeper. 

By the time Phil is halfway there, Clint is letting out a low and constant grating sound and Phil thinks he might not make it all the way in. Watching Clint’s face is almost debilitatingly good. He shifts to make sure he’s hitting Clint’s prostate almost out of self defense.

Clint jerks and shouts out a little sound of pleasure, and then twists his hips to find that angle again, his body hot and tight and writhing on Phil’s cock. Phil groans, catching and holding Clint’s hips still, but he keeps the angle right even as he’s forcing himself further in, loving the way he has to press Clint open wide with every inch.

Clint is snarling out a low groan, his face damp with sweat and his eyes clenched shut. His hands are both twisted into either side of his pillow, and he half-sobs when Phil pulls back to add lube again. Phil lets go of Clint’s left hip and wraps fingers around his cock as he presses back into Clint’s body, only stroking in as far as he’s already made space for himself, and Clint thrashes a little on his cock, his breath harsh, as he tries to shove his cock up into Phil’s fist. Phil lets him do it; Clint rides back onto his cock in increments as he does, the tight sheath of his asshole rippling and clenching as he moves, and it’s good enough to make Phil’s eyes roll back. He feels it around his cock when Clint is going to come, a shuddering, gripping of muscle, and he watches Clint jerk through it, moaning hoarsely, his head thrown back, the line of his throat taut and beautiful. He goes loose limbed and abandoned, and Phil draws up his knees and takes the last three inches while Clint’s still easy with pleasure, though he still cries out, little helpless noises that sound dragged out of him.

He leans forward on both hands, but then no, that won’t be enough. He gets his feet under him on either side of Clint’s hips and pulls all the way back, the glans of his cock catching at the lip of Clint’s hole, and then he fucks into him, still not hard, but not gently now, long, slow strokes that make Clint gasp out little choked-off pain sounds, and then long, faster strokes that make Clint grunt with effort, and there is that moment, again, where Clint isn’t fighting it, is taking it, and that moment _tips_ , and Clint is snarling and trying to rock up into every thrust. The noises he makes become open-throated cries, want-sounds, and when Phil checks, Clint is hard again. 

Phil reaches for his cock, and Clint wails, “Please, Phil, fuck me, please, please,” and hearing Phil’s name come jerking out of Clint’s throat like that is like an auditory orgasm.

Phil snarls and slams into him -- Clint whines: _ah, ah, ah, ah, ah_ \-- and jerks Clint off with ruthless efficiency, and he would’ve made sure that Clint came first, except Clint whispers almost silently, “Use me, use me, use me,” and Phil’s brain hazes over with red lust, and he does, he uses Clint for another two dozen rough strokes, and then his orgasm hits him like a shovel to the back of the head, and he has to grab the mattress beneath his hands to avoid falling on top of Clint, who is panting and choking out small, hurt sounds, tears streaking his cheeks, his eyes wide, blue-green and lost. Phil brings him off with a handful of strokes, even as he’s loosening Clint’s thighs and wrists with his other hand. 

Clint screams when he comes, his whole body jerking tautly, and then Phil is getting rid of the rest of the restraints and dragging Clint up against his chest. Clint grasps at him, shoving his face into Phil’s neck, and just sits there, trembling and gasping for breath.

Phil is in the unfamiliar position of not knowing what the fuck to do. Either as a minor child, Clint was so brutally trained for submissive behaviors that he falls into them in extremis, or else Clint is a submissive who was so badly abused that he ruthlessly trained himself _out_ of all submissive behaviors except like this, when he is pushed this hard.

Or, God help him, it could be both.

Either way, Phil is positive that Clint won’t want Phil to have seen, which means what they’re doing right now has to be diverted into something else quickly, or things will probably become painful for Clint.

So Phil says, “Did I hurt you, Clint? Talk to me.”

Clint’s voice is almost languid. “I’m all right,” he slurs. “I think… it was more intense in this position. I, uh. I do have to go take a piss. Someone had his cock where my bladder usually lives.”

Phil closes his eyes, because now Clint is going to save them both the pain of this experience with his wit and his will, and he’s not even going to get the benefit of luxuriating in his subspace.

“By all means,” Phil says. “But do it in the bathroom; I still have to sleep in this bed.”

Clint climbs to his feet, wobbly as a newborn colt, tips sideways almost far enough to land himself back in Phil’s lap and then the thigh cuffs slide down his legs and jingle as they hit his feet. Clint lifts one foot and tries to shake the cuff off of it, but it just hula hoops around his ankle, jingling merrily. He puts his foot down and pins the cuff with the other foot, and tries pulling free, and almost goes down face first. He considers both feet for a few seconds, and then says, “Fuck it,” and drags the cuffs along behind him as he heads into the bathroom.

Phil closes his eyes and tries to think. This kind of psychological trauma is huge. Reporting it is mandatory. But if Phil reports this, to anyone, Clint will be out the door like his ass is on fire, and that is… just not acceptable. Clint has too much to offer SHIELD, he has too much potential as a specialist, he has a real chance of finding a place here, he…

Phil won’t lose him like that. His hands roll into fists as he realizes what he’s thinking and what it means. This is more than just his job. If he puts Clint into the field and he turns out to be unfit (he won’t, Phil knows he won’t), and anyone finds out that Phil had known. No. That’s not going to happen. Clint is _not_ unfit; his entire life previous to SHIELD is proof of that.

He’s sure, but that doesn’t solve the problem. It doesn’t solve Clint’s problem. Phil isn’t a psychologist, but he’s familiar with problematic dynamics. In the past decade, thirty percent of their newly recruited submissives _haven’t been_ actual submissives; they’re either switches, or low end dominants that have been trained in how to respond as submissives, even though such training can only take you so far from your actual dynamic. Phil’s actual job is Analyst, at least in a very broad sense. He analyzes internal and external threats, he charts their courses, he recommends or personally initiates actions that contain and eliminate those threats. A third of his job these days is to contain the problems posed by their lack of submissives.

Clint has to be handled.

Phil chokes on a brief sound of harsh amusement. He’s going to be the one to do it, after all. He _is_ Clint’s handler.

Right at this moment, though, he has no idea how to approach the problem, and a bungled approach is the worst possible thing that could happen. He has to let things go on as they are now, and formulate a plan that actually has some chance of success.

At the very least, Phil has some measure of Clint’s trust, which means he has the opportunity to observe and gather information. And Phil is a genius at planning. He’s meticulous, he’s smart, he’s driven, and he has years and years of experience. Surely this isn’t beyond him.

The self-pep talk isn’t helping as much as he’d hoped.

The truth is, he’s terrified for Clint. If Clint ever has a clear enough grasp on his subspace to realize the things he’s saying to Phil and it takes him by surprise, Clint will panic, and then he’ll be in the wind.

The toilet flushes, and Clint drags his jingly thigh cuffs back into the bedroom and flops down on the bed with a little wince. “I want a beer, and I want these things off my feet,” he says, looking at Phil expectantly.

Phil lets the fear settle at the back of his mind, where he can deal with it later. He gets up and checks the kitchenette, and is pleasantly surprised to discover it stocked. He finds Clint a beer, pops it open, and brings it back into the bedroom.

Clint grins in happy surprise and makes gimme hands at the bottle.

“Sit up,” Phil says. “You’re not drinking beer lying down in my bed.”

“Yeah, about that,” Clint says wryly. “I’m pretty sure this is now ‘our’ bed, and leaving that aside, sitting up is not the best angle for me right now. Which is entirely your fault.”

Phil sighs and throws all the pillows into a pile at the head of the bed. “Lean up, then,” he says, and Clint scoots around obediently. When he does, one of the thigh cuffs falls off his foot, and he glares at it. Phil plucks the other one off, and puts both of them on the side of the bed. He works around Clint’s beer to remove the wrist cuffs, and Clint tips his head in gorgeous compliance when Phil moves to unbuckle the collar. Clint wriggles down until the pillows are all behind his shoulders and stretches hugely.

Phil puts the bondage gear in a drawer, and takes Clint’s chastity belt to the kitchen to clean and sanitize.

When he comes back, Clint is watching him alertly. “About tomorrow,” he says seriously.

Phil smuggles a pillow out from under Clint and puts it on his side of the bed, making sure the lube is tucked underneath it.

“What about tomorrow?” he asks.

“I figure there will be a few actual medical tests, but for the most part, they’ll be measuring my physical baseline, speed and stamina tests, treadmills and heart monitors and whatever.” Clint waves his beer.

“That sounds probable,” Phil agrees.

“I don’t want to wear the belt,” Clint says.

Phil turns to look at him narrowly. “I know you know why you wear the belt,” he says.

“Not arguing,” Clint says. “My chastity is all yours; easier for both of us if it isn’t something I have to be conscious of protecting.” He sounds serious, but then he smirks. “But, Phil, think about what I’m going to be doing. Treadmills, running in place. I’ll _jingle_.”

Phil snorts in surprise. 

“Nobody is going to get to me in medical,” Clint says. “You can take me there and I won’t leave until you come get me. Don’t make my junk jingle, Phil. Have a heart.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Phil says. Clint smiles winningly at him. “All right, no belt in medical. But there are assholes in every department, Clint, so don’t assume you’re safe there. You should be, but don’t assume.”

“I promise,” Clint says, and tips back the rest of his beer. “Bedtime?” He scoots down further on the bed, even rolling mostly off Phil’s side. He’s covered in lube, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Phil gets the lights and climbs into bed. Clint surprises him by tucking himself firmly into the little spoon position, and Phil can feel himself smiling in the dark.

Clint may be horribly frighteningly damaged, but Clint is also something unique and resilient. Phil should definitely keep that in mind while he tries to figure out how to handle him.


	5. Chapter 5

Clint wakes with a sharp gasp, has a moment of fearful disorientation, and then smells Phil and lube. The long, ultra-slick slide of Phil’s cock into him isn’t painless, it burns, Clint is sore, but it goes in all the way, all eleven or twelve impossible inches, and he hears himself say, “Yeah, God, that’s so fucking good, Phil,” before he can think to stop himself.

Phil just groans into his ear, one hand clamped tight around Clint’s hip, one knee tucked into the bend of Clint’s knee. He rolls a little forward, drawing Clint’s top knee up, and thrusts into him again. “This was a brilliant idea,” he breathes against Clint’s shoulder, and Clint arches his back as Phil sinks into him again. “This is a weird position for me, you want to suggest an angle?”

“Nooo,” Clint hums, contentedly full, body prickling at being pinned and used, which is what he had wanted out of this when he’d asked for it. It doesn’t even matter to Clint if he comes. He just wants this. Though he will come; Phil isn’t the type not to reciprocate, and Clint can’t explain that he doesn’t need it. “Just do what feels good.”

Phil does, pinning Clint’s knee a little more firmly and then riding into Clint with those long, luxurious strokes that Phil seems to be enjoying just as much as Clint is, though they’re only skating along Clint’s prostate sporadically. Phil’s rumbling deep in his chest, a rough sound that heats Clint, a possessive kind of sound that makes his mind feel easy, like he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, Phil’s pleasure sounds dragging at him.

Phil’s content with an easy rhythm for at least three or four minutes, and then he’s shifting a little and rocking into Clint harder, this time with his cock riding almost full length along Clint’s prostate, and each stroke forces a little gasping moan out of Clint, which makes the sound Phil is making harsher and harder and more satisfying. Clint would love to be the reason for Phil to make that sound any time Phil wants, would do whatever Phil told him to do, would love to submit to Phil for real.

He can’t ever, but he can have this; Phil doesn’t have to know.

“Be still,” Phil murmurs. “I want to fuck you hard, and I want you to be still and take it, Clint. Can you do that for me?”

Clint’s cock shudders and he feels his body do the same. “Yeah,” he says, hearing it come out throaty, which is better than needy. “I’ll be still.”

Phil rolls him over almost onto his belly and draws his knees up to bracket Clint’s hips. He pulls his cock all the way out, and Clint whimpers a little, helpless to stop it. “Just want to look at you,” Phil says. “You’re dripping lube and so wide open I can see the pink inside you. I did that to you. Stretched you out so I can see your secret skin.”

Clint can feel himself shaking, so turned on he’s barely breathing. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised that Phil would be like this; he’s a dominant, whether or not he knows the things Clint sometimes wants or not. He knows how to be a dominant. Clint’s cock throbs in time with his heartbeat.

“Just be still, Clint,” Phil repeats, and then the head of his cock is pressing against Clint’s hole at an almost downward angle, and then Phil is fucking him like that, straight down into Clint’s stretched open hole, and it’s agonizing and fucking amazing, and Clint starts to scream almost immediately, it _hurts_ , and Phil presses a hand over Clint’s mouth and groans into his ear, “Scream if you have to, that’s okay, Clint,” and Clint does have to, Phil’s cock is like a battering ram, it barely ever touches Clint’s prostate and it doesn’t matter, because Phil told him to, and Phil is groaning, “Your ass is perfect, Clint; I’ve never wanted to fuck anyone the way I want to fuck you.” 

Clint tenses and comes, and Phil grinds out a low noise, shoving into Clint so hard, and growls, “Come on my cock, Clint, that’s so good.”

Clint barely hears it, just enough to understand that he’s good. Mostly he’s riding his body, pain and pleasure, his brain content with what it has, being used, listening to Phil rumble and then growl and then groan and then finally snarl as he pumps Clint full of come.

Phil shifts down a little, pulling back from that excruciating angle, and Clint whines a little. Phil pulls his hand back from his mouth and pulls Clint back against him, Phil’s cock still inside him.

“Go back to sleep, Clint,” Phil whispers. “Just close your eyes and go back to sleep.”

And Clint does.

\---

The morning comes too soon; before he really realizes it’s happening, Coulson is manhandling him into the shower, and Clint doesn’t really realize how sore he is until he starts to scrub away the sticky lube on his ass and thighs. He thinks about running on a treadmill like this, and groans, but he gets himself clean as quickly as he can. When he gets out, there are clothes lying at the foot of the bed: underwear, a white t-shirt with SHIELD printed on the front, and a pair of basketball shorts. 

He dresses, takes the plate of food Coulson shoves into his hands, and eats quickly.

Coulson’s stride eats the distance between their quarters and Medical in only a few minutes while Clint does his best to stretch out some of the soreness from being bound down last night. 

He leaves Clint at the door with explicit instructions not to leave without him, and reiterates those instructions to the security personnel stationed outside the door. Clint kind of wants to roll his eyes, but lets it go for now. He doesn’t think it’s because Coulson doesn’t trust him; he thinks it’s because Coulson doesn’t trust everyone else. In that light, it’s almost a little sweet.

The first two hours of Medical are spent basically going over every injury Clint has ever sustained in his entire life, with x-rays and an MRI and the nurse taking his pulse every five minutes and marking notations down on his file.

Then there are the actual exams, the standard blood work, but also hands-on stuff, nose, throat, and lungs, palpating his abdomen, and one extremely embarrassing prostate check, though the doctor that performs it only chuckles a little when he sees the state of Clint’s ass. He does, however, order an enema, which makes Clint bitter as he sweats his way through it, and then checks Clint inside with a little camera, apparently just to make sure he isn’t actually damaged.

There’s a thankfully brief conversation about how to avoid sustaining any serious damage from Coulson’s size -- apparently Medical is fully aware of it, which kind of boggles Clint -- along with a prescription bottle of muscle relaxers that Clint has no intention of ever taking. Also, a bottle of Chloroseptic, that the doctor tells him will loosen and numb his throat. He doesn’t specify why Clint might need it, but Clint can guess. He has no intention of using _that_ either, though he takes it. 

Then it’s time for the cardio, and Clint is grateful for it, enjoying the feeling of stretching out for a run, and then pounding away at the treadmill, his mind free to think of other things.

Mostly he thinks about last night, the feel of Coulson sliding into him all the way, but it’s disconnected and fragmented. Clint can remember all the high points, but he’d been so physically engaged that most of whatever had been said escapes him. He remembers Coulson telling him to be still, that he wanted to fuck him hard, and he remembers the excruciating angle Coulson had employed; he remembers screaming, but he also remembers the storm of want in his mind, and how hard he’d come and how Coulson had eased him back into sleep with just a few words.

He remembers it had been good, had been exactly what he had wanted, and he knows he’ll try to get it to happen again. But he’ll wait a while because being like that, so open, is dangerous, and Coulson isn’t stupid.

He’s still running when Coulson appears in the door of the medical suite.

“I need his tracking device implanted right now,” he says flatly. And to Clint, a little less flatly, “You’ve got a mission.”

Clint is stunned for a couple of seconds, and then his blood rushes at the idea. He has been carefully not thinking of how long he was going to be trapped inside SHIELD headquarters while he trained, and the idea of being in the field is so unexpected and welcome that he almost vaults off the treadmill.

“Details?” Clint asks.

“Full briefing once your tracker is implanted,” Coulson promises. “Where do you want it?”

“Can’t be my arms or upper chest or back,” Clint says. “Other than that, where do you usually put them?”

Coulson glances at the doctor, who says, “Lower back, close to the hip.”

Coulson nods sharply. “Right now,” he says, nothing about his tone impatient, but the doctor basically drops everything and leads Clint into a tiny surgical suite, everything sterile. She urges Clint to take a full shower while the doctor washes up.

Clint showers away sweat, which is really all it is. But it’s a surgical procedure, even if it’s a minor one, so he gives himself a thorough going over with the deeply astringent smelling hospital soap as well.

The result of the rush is a little anticlimactic. The doctor positions Clint on his belly, cuts a tiny, but deep, slice into the muscle midway between back and buttocks, and Clint barely feels the device as it’s pressed into him. They don’t even stitch him. They just slap a bandage on it. Coulson has brought Clint’s gear with him, so Clint changes right there in medical.

“No time to fit you with armor,” Coulson says. “It’ll be the first thing we do when you come back in, but nobody expected this kind of turnaround.”

Clint nods. “This will do,” he says.

The doctor says, “At some point we’ll want to finish the cardio testing, but honestly, I don’t expect trouble there. He was on the mill for almost two hours.” She turns to Clint. “You’re healthy in every respect. As for the scars, SHIELD can take care of them. We’ll insist, actually. Too identifying.”

Clint nods, his jaw clenched, but he gets it. It’s just that he’s earned every single scar on his body, and the idea of SHIELD erasing his past doesn’t thrill him.

The doctor passes the now familiar dime-sized disc to Coulson, however. “This is close enough to done not to matter,” she says.

Coulson takes it and slips it into his coat pocket. He jerks his chin at Clint, and Clint willingly falls in beside him. He makes an effort to start memorizing where they are, as Coulson leads him through the building. By the time they get to one of the conference rooms, he’s starting to get an idea of how this floor is laid out, at least.

Hill is inside, waiting for them, the blue uniform jumpsuit thing stunning on her, though Clint thinks at least half of SHIELD must hate the uniform desperately. They look like you have to be almost physically perfect to carry one off. Clint is kind of curious how he’d look in one.

Bulky, he’s guessing.

She’s got a series of satellite images spread out on the table, and a couple of file folders on one corner. “Is he ready?” she asks.

“He was already ready,” Coulson says. “Just let me take him through the basics.”

Coulson clicks on a screen that takes up most of the narrower wall closest to Clint. “This is Erik Glau. He’s a syndicate player, fairly high ranking, who has just made contact with one of our undercover operatives in order to buy the plans for a biochemical weapon. We know Glau has plans to rise in the syndicate by whatever means possible, and suspect he wants the bio to take out one of the syndicate locations where Steven Hemmler,” he flicks to another picture, “the nominal boss -- though it’s actually more of a committee -- is going to be at some point over the next three days. If it was a standard hit, we probably wouldn’t get involved, but this kind of weaponry can be erratic. With the right conditions, it could spread nearly a quarter of a mile in any direction.”

“With what kind of casualties?” Clint asks.

“The gas is instantly fatal at any time within the first twelve hours of dispersion. After that, it takes a little longer to die, but even well dispersed, it doesn’t take that long. When it dissipates, it leaves a resinous film on every available surface. Contact with the resin is fatal in three day through skin, but if any of it gets into the softer membranes, mouth or eyes, death within twenty-four hours. It becomes inert after eight days, but any contact with water again brings it back to a half-life of six to ten hours.”

“Crap,” Clint says sincerely. “Have you considered not letting our undercover agent sell him these plans?” 

“It would break her cover, and we need her inside,” Hill says. “She’s our best source of high level information gathering and disinformation dissemination. We need to protect her position.”

“Okay, so why a public meet?” Clint asks. “Assuming Glau more or less trusts our agent, why not some kind of clandestine hand off?”

“Because Hemmler doesn’t trust Glau,” Coulson says. “He has him under surveillance. What we need from you is to take out Glau and whatever surveillance he has tailing him, and gently wound our operative.”

“Do we have teams on the streets?” Clint asks.

“We’ve picked up on the surveillance team assigned to Glau, yes,” Hill says. “Assuming they are the only ones.”

Clint tents his fingertips in front of his chin. “But you don’t think they are,” he says finally. “You think I’ll be able to pick them out from above street level.”

“Coulson seems to think so,” Hill says, though she doesn’t sound convinced.

“What about the intel,” Clint asks, dismissing Hill’s doubts. “I’m assuming Hemmler can’t find out about the info our operative was going to hand over.”

“Not your problem,” Coulson says. “We have people on the street to recover that intel.”

“And what about the meeting itself? Won’t it damage Hemmler’s trust in our operative?” Clint asks.

“You don’t need to know,” Hill says firmly. “We need you on the hit, not working the repercussions of the intel or our operatives relationship with Hemmler.”

Clint grits his teeth, but says perfectly pleasantly, “For the trade, am I looking for a case, a hard drive, thumb drive?”

Hill gives him a frustrated look. “It doesn’t matter. Agents on the scene will recover the intel.”

Clint shakes his head. “Which will be great, if it actually works,” he says. “I’m asking what you want me to do with it if it’s passed or about to be passed, or if it’s in the air or on the ground. What if it’s out of hand, and there is doubt as to its recovery?”

Hill turns her frustrated look on Coulson, who shrugs. “He’s used to planning every aspect of his own missions, Maria. You can’t expect him to stop doing it all at once.” Hill sighs, and nods. Coulson turns to Clint. “If you truly believe the information is in peril of being passed, kill it. It will be on a slim backup drive, but that may be inside a case as well. Just remember, our people will be in the field as well, and you won’t know us. So don’t assume anyone going for the drive is a hostile. I’ll be in your ear the whole time.” His tone is soothing now. “And we have satellite imagery and control of every camera in that area. I’ll be able to tell you if the information is in jeopardy.”

“I’ll be able to pick out SHIELD personnel, don’t worry about that,” Clint says. “When you say gently injured, what exactly do you mean?”

“Nothing even close to really dangerous, but something to prove she was meant to be a target as well,” Hill says.

“Doable,” Clint agrees. “When and where?”

Hill passes over the satellite photos; it’s a smallish urban neighborhood in Brooklyn. Not many high rises, but plenty of places Clint can shoot from. The meet location is marked with a red X, and Clint turns the photos around and around in his hands for a few seconds. “Can I get ahold of blueprints for this building?” he asks, tapping it.

Hill looks dubious, but Coulson is already doing something on the computer.

“Converted lofts,” Coulson says, and pulls up the blueprints. “We can arrange to get a tenant out of an apartment if need be.”

“Nah, the roof will be fine. That will give me sight lines down every street without interruption.”

“That far out?” Hill asks, though this time she just sounds curious.

Clint grins at her. “Baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Coulson sighs, but Hill smirks slightly.

“Okay, timeline. I want to time the shot _before_ the exchange, yes?” Coulson nods. “What time of day?”

“Mid-afternoon,” Coulson says, glancing at his watch. “In about three hours, actually.”

Clint grunts as he peruses the blueprints, planning for entrance and exit. Then he looks at the satellite photos again. “At least there aren’t a lot of trees in Brooklyn,” Clint mutters. “No real cover. His only shot is to make for the shop behind him, and it has huge display windows.” Clint shrugs a shoulder. “But chances are he’ll be dead before he has any idea it’s coming.”

“You don’t think you’ll have trouble when his shadows scatter?” Hill asks.

“They’re not going to scatter; they’re going to move in. They’re going to want to know what the hell he was up to. I shouldn’t have any trouble finding his invisible shadows, either. They’ll do the same thing.” Clint turns the satellite image in his hands again. “Can I see this on the big screen?” he asks. “If possible, can I see it live, from yesterday, right around showtime today?”

Hill gives him a thoughtful look, but Coulson’s fingers are already flying on the keyboard. Clint spends ten minutes or so looking at traffic flow, car and foot, and watching where the sun strikes and glares off of other buildings, so he’ll know what to expect. 

“Okay,” he says eventually. “I’m ready.”

Hill’s brows arch. “You’ve got time,” she says.

Clint just shakes his head. “If I have to relocate, I’ll need time to move.”

“Why would you need to relocate?” Coulson asks alertly.

“Because there’s a roof garden,” Clint says. “It should be empty, and there are a lot of angles it won’t matter at, but it pays to be prepared. I’ll let you know if it happens. Plus I want to put together a go bag. I’ll need to see about my guns.” He shrugs. “Early is better than late.”

Hill glances at Coulson, but she nods. “We’ll keep you updated,” she tells Clint.

“Thank you,” Clint says sincerely.

Clint and Coulson head to the range, and Agent Kennet grins at Clint. “Got almost all you need. It’ll be another day or so on the Sakos. Did some custom work on a .45 Sig I want you to look at, but didn’t want to do the rest without your feedback.”

Clint grins. “I might be able to get that in tonight sometime; today I’ve got a schedule to meet.”

“The Steyr?” Coulson asks curiously.

Clint wobbles his head a little. “In a perfect world, it would be perfect for this. In the real world, I’m going to have hostiles at an unknown range running toward, or possibly away from, the scene. The Sako would have been perfect, but as it is, I’ll take the Cheytac, just in case.” 

Agent Kennet brings it out of the back without comment, along with a case. Clint shoots him a brief grin. “Silencer? Two, actually.” Kennet brings them. “Loaded from the top?”

“I already have the documentation on file,” Kennet says, and watches Clint fly through the breakdown, stowing each component carefully in its niche. There’s an extra box of cartridges in the case, which Clint opens and tucks into little cuts in the foam, even though there are also already half a dozen loaded magazines in the case. “Sometimes you don’t have time to get them out of the box,” he tells Coulson; Agent Kennet replaces the depleted box with a full one. Clint ponders the case for a few seconds.

“I want to make a go bag,” he says. “Can I get another box of ammo, the Nightforce, US Optics, and Pinnacle for scopes? And if you tell me you’ve got a Sentry prototype telemetry scope, I’ll be your new best friend.”

“Lucky me,” Kennet says, and starts laying out scopes, along with a black medium-sized thick canvas zippered bag. Clint runs his fingers over the scopes, looking for rough edges and finding none. He fits two of the scopes into the gun case, and then starts on his go bag.

The extra ammo goes first, along with a hefty cleaning kit that Kennet admits to putting together himself -- not specifically for Clint, but for Agents that are hard on their weapons. Clint is duly impressed. Kennet has loose rope and a couple of harnesses, though he warns Clint that he’s better off getting those things from the actual Armory, where they design the armor, than here. Clint takes a coil of rope anyway -- he doesn’t have time to deal with the Armory right now -- and tucks it inside. 

“Shooting glasses,” Clint says, turning to face Coulson. “UV blocking, anti-glare, tan, orange, and clear. How long?”

“Fitted, at least a day. If you don’t care, I can have them delivered to our quarters in fifteen minutes,” Coulson says. 

“I’ll get them fitted later,” Clint says, and watches for a few seconds as Coulson goes for his phone. He turns back to Kennet. “I’m good with tech, but I need a crash course in our radio system.”

“Multiple channels, the three you care about are Primary, where you can hear everyone, Mission, where you can only hear the people on your assigned mission frequency, and Private, which you’ll only be able to talk to Coulson on. You saw the black booster?” Clint nods. “Only if you’re going to be out of a fifty mile radius. Otherwise, the earpiece is its own transmitter. Always take a spare. Little oval button on the section closest to the shell of your ear switches channels. Anyone in command of a scene can override if necessary.”

Clint nods. “Is there a way to use them to tap into hostile frequencies?”

“That’s out of my league, son,” Agent Kennet says sadly. “You’ll have to either talk to another specialist or to one of the techies. Or, hell, Coulson. He’s an old hand; if there’s a way, he probably knows it.”

“Awesome, thanks, Agent Kennet,” Clint says. “Any chance you’ve got some canned air back there?”

Kennet looks a little bemused, but fetches a can out for Clint. “What kind of go bag are you making?” he asks, grinning.

“My own personal experience go bag,” Clint says ruefully. “I’ll probably make a couple more in the next week. If I made one big enough to carry all I really need, I wouldn’t be able to carry it.” He cocks his head at Kennet. “Lockpicks?”

“Standard or fancy?” Kennet asks.

“Standard; I don’t have time to teach myself fancy,” Clint grins.

“You’d have to get fancy from R&D anyway,” Kennet says, and ducks into the cage to grab the lockpicks.

While Kennet is in the back, Clint senses more than sees someone rounding the corner of the counter, and steps backward to get out of that person’s way. It turns out to be Maxwell. Oh, joy. “What the hell are you doing here?” Maxwell demands.

“I work here,” Clint says. “I’m pretty sure that was something we figured out on the plane ride.”

“I mean, what are you doing checking out weapons? You haven’t even been here a day,” Maxwell snarls.

Clint shrugs. “Got a job,” he says. He’s aware of Coulson standing just behind him a moment later.

“You can’t…” Maxwell sputters. “You haven’t even been here _a day_! What kind of milk run are they sending you on?”

“I’m not a liberty to discuss my missions with anyone but my handler,” Clint says sweetly. 

Maxwell’s gaze slides up over Clint’s shoulder, and he releases a breath, clearly losing the will to argue. Clint bets Coulson is giving him that bland but somehow terrifying look that he gets.

“Don’t you have a mission to get ready for, as well, Agent Maxwell?” Coulson asks as though mildly curious.

“Yes, sir,” Maxwell says. “I’m just here to replace my service weapon.”

“What happened to it?” Kennet wants to know.

Maxwell’s cheeks go ruddy. “I lost it in a river on my last mission,” he admits.

Kennet hands Maxwell a tablet. “You should have come straight here,” Kennet says. “Walking around unarmed is hazardous to your health.”

Maxwell doesn’t reply, but his hands curl into fists around the edges of the tablet. He starts typing with easy expertise, apparently dismissing Clint altogether, which is perfectly fine with Clint. He hauls his partially filled go bag over his shoulder and picks up the gun case with his free hand.

“Quarters?” he asks Coulson, and Coulson nods like it had actually been a question, when they both know it hadn’t been.

They go up three floors, and now that Clint is paying attention, he can see how deliberately labyrinthine this place is. Anyone not supposed to be here would probably stand out pretty clearly. Clint memorizes twists and turns, recognizes the corridor outside their quarters, and manages to figure out which unmarked door is theirs before Coulson slides his thumb onto the lock.

Inside, Clint drags a pair a jeans and a t-shirt out of a drawer (he turns the t-shirt inside out; it has SHIELD written on the front of it) and rolls them up and crams them into the bag. He adds socks, an unopened toothbrush, and digs around in the kitchen drawers until he finds a flathead screwdriver and a smallish hammer. He can feel Coulson watching him as Clint adds his old phone to the bag, and then sorts through the closet until he finds a windbreaker, this one at least without any decoration.

“That’s mine,” Coulson says mildly.

“I’ll return it as soon as I can get one of my own,” Clint answers absently.

“All my go bags always had weapons and computers in them,” Coulson says conversationally. 

“I need a computer, or at least a tablet,” Clint says. He folds up all three pair of his shooting glasses, tucks two of them into the bag rolled up in his t-shirt, and slips the orange pair into the front of his shirt. “If you’re a sniper and you’re dressed like this, if you’re compromised, the only thing you can do is have stuff readily available to make yourself look less like a sniper.” He frowns. “Are my fingerprints removed from all pertinent databases yet?” he asks.

“Yes, and we’ve taken care of your ‘wanted in connection with’ list, too. Why?”

“Because if I have to use the go bag, I’ll have to lose the gun,” he says unhappily. “I’ll try to put it somewhere that it can be recovered from, but sometimes that’s not possible.”

“You can wear something else,” Coulson says. 

“No time to get something useful together. All my shirts say SHIELD on them. No regular clothes at all. I’ll worry about it after this mission.”

He descends on the tact gear he’d been wearing the night before and retrieves all the clips still in the pockets. Coulson had brought him two spares for each gun; Clint slides another six into the built in pockets in the tactical blouse. The other four he tosses in his go bag. His extra earpieces go in, too, aside from the one that Clint tucks into his ear. He puts the sleek black radio in his go bag.

“This should be a fairly safe mission, Clint,” Coulson says, almost gently.

“I know,” Clint says. “But they won’t all be, and I can’t let myself get out of the habit. You said it yourself; it’s my responsibility to save myself if necessary.”

“We’ll have a car in the alley,” Coulson says. “You won’t be visible from the street at all.”

“I still have to get through the building to the roof,” Clint says. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. There’s a fire escape on two sides away from the main street, and it has elevators and stairwells inside; I’m betting the stairwells go mostly unused. But I can’t just assume I won’t run into anyone. It doesn’t matter if I’m out in the middle of nowhere, already in a perch, just waiting for the word, but this is New York, and right now, I look like a terrorist. We’ll have to deal with my wardrobe soonest if I’m going to be going on regular missions any time soon. Best case scenario, I get an armored vest that I can just pull a jacket over, but that doesn’t help me now.”

“I recommended you,” Coulson admits. “Most of this didn’t cross my mind.”

Clint grins. “That’s because your uniform is a suit. Everyone blends in a suit. And don’t worry about it; I want to do this. I thought it was going to be weeks at least. We’ll just have to deal with the more practical stuff before I go out again.”

He hoists the go bag over his shoulder and picks up the gun case. “We should move. The more time I have to survey the meet zone from my perch, the better off we are.”

Coulson says, “I’ll be in a mobile command center six blocks east of the meet zone. I’m the eyes of the operation, all action will go through me. My location is absolutely classified. That said, if you have to run, you run to me.”

Clint looks dubious.

“It’s a _mobile_ command center,” Coulson reminds him, and Clint smirks. 

“Yeah, all right.”

“I can’t go with you to your ‘perch,’” Coulson says seriously. “I’m in charge of the rest of the operations as well, all the street agents. I have to give them the briefing still. How do you want to get there?”

“A car would be great,” Clint says sarcastically, and then widens his eyes in innocence when Coulson frowns faintly at him. “You said there’d be a car in the alley waiting for me?” he asks.

Coulson nods. “From the minute that the shooting starts.”

“Can’t we just have that guy pick me and and drop me off there, and then circle around until action time?” Clint asks.

“No reason why not,” Coulson says. “I assumed you wouldn’t want anyone to know where you were except Hill and I.”

“Usually wouldn’t,” Clint admits. “But I can’t walk dressed like this, and I have to trust someone.”

“I’ll make sure you get someone good,” Coulson says, and takes out his phone. “Do you remember where we came in yesterday?” Clint nods firmly. Coulson looks like he might want to ask if Clint’s sure, but in the end, doesn’t. “You’ll meet your driver there. Black SUV. I’ll comm you the name as soon as I get it.”

Clint nods and turns toward the door. “Clint,” Coulson says. Clint pauses. “Be careful.”

“You’re actually going to be closer to the fight than I am,” Clint says, quirking a smile in Coulson’s direction. “You be careful.” It’s a joke, but Clint means it. Coulson nods like he knows it.

Clint hefts his load and leaves Coulson behind.

Clint is very grateful that he actually does remember where they’d come in, but it’s still a hell of a hike hauling his gear. People scatter out of his way as he jogs through the halls; outside the huge glassed in lobby, the day isn’t nearly as beautiful as yesterday had been. It looks cold and overcast. Clint didn’t even think to ask for gloves.

He hooks a left down the long, narrow corridor that leads to the parking garage, his footsteps echoing, and is aware that he’s half-hard, but not worried about it. He’s used to it. Maybe that means he’s fucked up, maybe he’s just an adrenaline junkie. It doesn’t really matter. It just is.

He has to stop to go through the security checkpoint, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s still wearing Coulson’s collar. If it had been anyone else, Clint would have suspected it to be deliberate.

This time he’s pretty sure they’d both just forgotten about it.

It’s a danger, but it’s a minor danger, and Clint isn’t prepared to worry about it right now.

Security allows him through, and there’s a standard Black SUV idling at the door when Clint lets himself out. If he looks sideways, he can see Lola, but he doesn’t look. He keeps his eyes on the car and on the driver, because honestly, if anyone were going to pick Clint off, this would be the best time and place for it.

Clint’s earpiece clicks, and Coulson says, “Specialist Eliot Spencer.”

“What does he specialize in?” Clint murmurs.

“Getting into and out of things. Combat driving. Hand to hand combat. A few other things. He’ll handle your extraction, don’t worry about it.”

“Worry?” Clint says. “Me?”

He still approaches cautiously, and like he understands exactly why, Specialist Spencer rolls down the passenger side window and holds out a badge and identification card.

“Why the hell don’t I have a badge and identification card?” Clint asks, either Coulson or Spencer, he’s not picky which.

Coulson must have switched back to the Mission frequency, because he doesn’t answer. Spencer says, “Because you haven’t even been here a day. Stow your gear in the back seat.”

Clint stows obediently, and then says to fuck with all his rules of personal safety and climbs into the car with a perfect stranger.

“It’ll get easier,” Spencer grunts, and throws the SUV into gear.

“What will?” Clint asks.

“Having people to trust,” Spencer says.

He doesn’t say much for the rest of the ride, which is fine. Clint’s scanning the area, watching flags and street decorations for wind direction and speed, keeping an eye on the clouds to factor in what he thinks are going to become troublesome weather issues, taking in traffic flow, a few more cars than yesterday, a lot less pedestrians, which is good. Spencer circles the meet zone one block out so that Clint can get a good look at it from every angle without being asked, and then drives to the back of the building Clint had chosen, a wide but little-used alley with a fire escape Clint should have no trouble with.

“There’s something else,” Spencer says, as though they’d been having a conversation the whole ride over. He climbs out of the car and goes around to the hatch while Clint recovers his go bag and the Cheytac from the back seat. He circles around the back of the SUV, and Spencer is inputting a code into a long, slim case which Clint would recognize anywhere.

Spencer opens it and Clint considers the bow inside. It isn’t one of his, but it’s a very close match. “Pull?” Clint demands.

“I don’t know anything about bows,” Spencer admits. “What I know is that my Handler, Hardison, is using this to build your prototype. It’s supposed to be an almost perfect replica of one of your own bows that SHIELD recovered nine months ago in Croatia.” He tugs aside a blanket and reveals a pair of quivers, at least eighty arrows, and those definitely _are_ Clint’s. Clint plucks one out and examines it by feel; they’d been keeping them someplace cool and dry. It feels perfect, right down to the fletching. He slips it back into the quiver.

“Why?” Clint asks.

“Coulson. He doesn’t want you close enough to use them, but if you have to get that close, he wanted you to have them.”

Clint’s body goes warm with pleasure, a fierce little spike of gratitude, a bigger rush of trust.

“Do you need me to help carry?” Spencer asks.

Clint passes him the go bag. “No, just let me get it situated.” The quivers are made to couple, so buckling them on is no work at all. He takes the bow and leaves the case. It takes him six seconds to string it, and he gives a cautious pull. Heavy, but yeah, almost perfect, and the string is good. He slings the bow over his left shoulder, slings the go bag over his right, and picks up the Cheytac with his right hand. It gives him one hand to climb with, and his good hand if he comes across trouble and needs his sidearm.

“Thank you,” Clint says.

Spencer doesn’t answer. “I’ll meet you right here at the end of the op,” he says. “I’m your exit strategy; if you miss me by more than four minutes, you’ll have to call for something else, or get out and someplace safe for you to call in for an extraction.”

Clint nods his understanding. “If I have to use the bow, you’ll hear it on the comms. If that happens, come back here and pick up the Cheytac if at all possible. If I end up in bow range, I’ll be there.” He points to the roof of a dilapidated bed and breakfast right on the edge of the meet zone and well within the range of stray bullets.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Spencer says, and offers him a hand. “Keep your head down.”

“As much as I can,” Clint agrees, and then turns to the fire escape and starts to climb. He hears Spencer drive away, but is juggling too much to look down. 

It’s not the weight that’s the problem. It’s not even the distribution of weight. It’s that he only has one free hand, and every second he’s clinging to the side of this building puts him, and the op itself, in more danger. He manages it in under a minute, grateful to be over the edge and crouching behind the rooftop ledge.

He’ll have to talk to Coulson; explain that ideally, a sniper would be in position for at least three to four hours before the rest of the op starts. It’s boring as hell, but it’s the best thing for security, especially if Clint ever has to abandon a position and locate another suitable one. He shakes his head; there’s no time to worry about it now, and it’s possible Coulson knows all of that, and there just hadn’t been time for a perfect setup.

He glances around. 

The garden is on the opposite side of the roof, blocked off from sight by the building that leads from the main building to the roof and by several state of the art central air units, each of which is four feet tall and five feet wide. 

Unless someone is actually _on_ the roof with Clint now, he should be home free. Once he’s sure the roof is clear, he scurries, low and quick, to the spot he’d staked out in his mind, and sets the bow and go bag on the ground. The Cheytac he slots against one wall, opens, and begins to assemble with quick familiarity. In two minutes he has a functional scope, and is scanning the area of the meet. He clicks his radio on. “Coulson?”

“Hawkeye,” Coulson says, and Clint grins a little. “Are you in position?”

“Yes, sir. We’re working with a lot less pedestrian traffic today, but I estimate we’ll get rain in less than half an hour. It’s hard to see through a forest of umbrellas, sir.”

“Is there any way to up this meet,” Coulson demands of someone who is not Clint.

“I have no contact with our operative,” Hill says. “There’s no way. Can we get more people off the street?”

“Not without it being obvious,” Coulson says.

But Clint is scanning the crowd with his scope, and is not liking what he’s seeing. “What time is it exactly, and what time is the meet exactly?” he demands.

“It’s 3:54; the meet is 4:45,” Hill answers.

“I see three SHIELD agents in plainclothes and two in a white Lexus, is that right?” Clint demands.

“We’re trying to keep our presence light; Glau isn’t stupid or inattentive. We can’t risk anyone else until the meet,” Coulson says, and Clint is pretty sure that Coulson _not_ asking how Clint knows that is deliberate. He expects to hear about it later, but for now, Coulson won’t want to confuse the matter of the op.

“Yes, but I also see four… plainclothes police, I think,” Clint murmurs. “One outside the cafe, ballcap. Two on the footbridge, holding hands and drinking from the same cup of coffee. And one in front of the Lexus. Pretty sure that one has made you.” Clint shakes his head. “Something’s wrong here.”

“Get me information on what NYPD is doing right now,” Coulson growls; “I need to know what they’re waiting for.”

“I also see two men in coveralls eating out of lunch pails on the west side of the street, at the bus stop. Could be nothing, but nobody eats out of lunch pails but construction workers anymore.” Clint frowns.

“You said they were in coveralls,” Hill says. “Maybe they are construction workers?”

“Their boots are too clean,” Clint mutters. “And no belts, no equipment. And it’s not lunch time.”

“Get me eyes on the meet zone right now,” Coulson snaps.

“Coulson, this is some kind of a set up. The police are here to make things messy. The men at the bus stop are probably bodyguards. You said Glau wasn’t stupid or inattentive. He has to know he has a tail.” Clint is silent for several seconds. “There should be at least two more hitters. Maybe four. They’ll close in on the meet as soon as it starts, circling it in. When Glau’s tails show up, they’ll remove them from play, and the police will close in. In the confusion, Glau will take the handoff, probably leaving our operative either dead, or for the police to sort out.”

“Can you still take the shot?” Coulson asks.

“Sure, I can take it. I can take all of them, I can even still gently wound our operative, but your action zone is going to be cluttered with bodies,” Clint says. “If you don’t have someone right in the middle of it, I can’t guarantee a shot on the device. It’s not like they’re going to be holding it up in the air.”

There are several seconds of silence. Into it, Hill says, “Glau is incoming, thirty or thirty-five minutes over the road. His tail is with him.”

“No eyes on our operative?” Coulson asks. 

“Nothing yet; she’s coming by cab,” Hill says, sounding subdued.

“Okay, everyone on the street take a look around you, see if you can spot up to four more hostiles,” Coulson says.

Clint searches the crowd through his scope as the first drops of rain start to drizzle down out of the sky. The cop couple make their way off the foot bridge and into the cafe outside which the other cop is stationed. The cop in front of the Lexus moves over to the buildings beside it, mostly protected by the rain, but he keeps his eyes on the car.

“We need to get Maxwell and Esposito out of there,” Coulson says grimly. “They’ll just get tied up with the police when things start to get bloody.”

“Wait,” Clint says. “Four cars back from the Lexus, red penis extension truck. You have two in the cab, and maybe two in the bed, getting wet. Any word on the police?”

“I’m on it,” Hill says.

Clint adjusts his scope. “I can take out the two in the back on your mark,” Clint says. “I can take out the two at the bus station on your mark. I can take out the two in the cab, but it’s going to be loud, not clean.”

“Glau is 16 minutes out,” Hill reports. “NYPD advises they have word of a potential syndicate hit at this location; they won’t give up jurisdiction.”

“Then patch them through to our channel, even if you have to hack theirs,” Coulson says. “Hawkeye, what would you need to be sure you could destroy the device?”

“Someone in the crowd to pick it up, either on the north edge of the crowd, or in the middle of the crowd. If the north edge, they just have to be facing any direction but south and holding the device away from their body. If they’re in the crowd, I need it at least at eye level.”

There is a long silence.

“Can you do it without hurting our agent?” Coulson demands.

“If he or she holds it by a corner or a side, yes,” Clint says.

“Are you _sure_ ” Hill demands.

“I’m sure,” Clint says impatiently. “I’ll play it any way you want it. If I have to mow down the whole crowd to get eyes on the device, I can do that, too, but I’m not really okay with shooting cops.”

“No one is shooting cops,” Coulson says. “Okay, who can you see on the street that you’re sure you’ll recognize in the crowd?”

Clint scans the street but the three agents he sees aren’t familiar to him. He checks the Lexus, angling down, and sees Maxwell in the driver’s seat. He sighs.

“Agent Maxwell. Plus he has the benefit of being very tall,” Clint says.

Maxwell huffs over the open comm, but doesn’t object.

“Attention New York Police Officers on stakeout at 133rd and Grant. This is Agent Coulson with SHIELD. You are walking into a sting SHIELD is implementing to recover terrorist level data on a biochemical weapon drop at this location.”

Clint has to hand it to them; the cops barely flinch.

“And we know that how?” a gruff voice demands. 

“Both agents in the white Lexus next to an undercover police officer have credentials they can offer you,” Coulson says. “We think you were lured here by the potential buyer to confuse our operation.”

The cop leaning up against the building strolls over to the passenger side of the Lexus and leans over. Clint can see the window go down, and the cop looking down into the car, presumably examining the SHIELD ID’s without taking them.

“You have other agents on the street?” the gruff voice asks.

“Who am I speaking with?” Coulson asks.

“Lieutenant Detective Redding, Organized Crime,” he says, and ambles back toward the building.

“Lieutenant, I have three other agents on the street and two dozen more in a perimeter around this block. I also have a man on a rooftop. One of the parties doing the meet is an undercover SHIELD operative whose cover must be maintained at all costs.”

“Yeah, and where are you?” Redding demands.

“I’m a few blocks east of you in a mobile command center,” Coulson says. Coulson gives the Lieutenant the descriptions of the other three SHIELD agents on the street, and Clint sees him very competently case the area without looking at all like he’s doing so.

“So what do you want from me?” Redding says.

“We have reason to believe that there are hitters already on the scene,” Coulson says. “Bus stop, lunch pails, very clean construction workers without tools. Red truck four cars behind the Lexus, two in the cab, two in the bed. We believe the hitters will attempt to remove a surveillance team on our target, which will draw you into the action, and cause maximum death and confusion in minimum time. I can make that not happen, but I need you _not_ to run toward Erik Glau when the shooting starts.”

“Glau!” Redding says sharply. “He’s moving on Hemmler?”

“We believe so; it’s essential that we do not allow him access to biochemical weapons. If you want to deal with the bodyguards, we’d frankly appreciate the help. If you want to back off and set your own perimeter so you can question me and everyone else involved after the meet takes place, that is also acceptable.” Coulson’s voice is smooth and cool as he lays out options. “Almost any way you want to handle this is acceptable, as soon as we recover the dangerous intel and our operative, and I cannot make that happen if you all bolt toward the action when things start happening.”

“Glau is 4 minutes out; his tail is right behind him. I still don’t see another tail,” Hill sounds frustrated.

“What is he driving?” Clint asks.

“Champagne Lexus SUV,” Hill reports. “His surveillance is in a black Mercedes.”

Clint’s eyebrows arch. “Are we sure that’s his tail?” Clint demands. “It’s a hell of a car for a tail; distinctive. Are we sure that the Mercedes isn’t a protection detail, which would make everyone _here_ surveillance.”

Coulson is silent for a long moment. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, and Clint hears the message loud and clear. They all have to go down, no matter who is working for whom.

“They’ve been in different cars every time,” Hill says. “He could be right.”

“Lieutenant, we’re out of time,” Coulson says. “I suggest you draw your people back.”

Maxwell gets out of the Lexus and walks easily toward the bus stop and takes a seat next to the construction workers/hitmen. “Car trouble,” he says glumly, and one of them laughs.

“We’ve got the pickup,” Redding says, and Clint watches his people start to circle out of sight to get around the big truck. “We won’t run into your action zone, don’t worry.” Redding sounds cranky. “But we’re definitely not sitting on our thumbs while you take credit for the whole bust,” he says.

Coulson says, “Take _all_ the credit for the bust, Redding. We’ll thank you for it. Our only priority is our operative, and dangerous classified intel.”

“Blacklight is on the scene,” Hill says. “Yellow cab on the northwest corner.”

Clint swings his scope over to get a close look. She’s a petite woman with long, gorgeous black hair. She’s carrying nothing but a clutch purse, but she’s wearing a raincoat with enormous pockets.

“Glau coming in from the south,” Hill reports. Clint swings his scope again and watches the SUV pull to a halt, parked a little sloppily, but within the lines. Glau gets out, his cell phone in his hand.

The Mercedes pulls in three spaces back, but both occupants stay in the car. The police approach the red truck; the two men at the bus stop stand up.

Blacklight and Glau continue to glide toward one another as though neither of them are aware of any of it. They close to within ten feet of each other and stop.

“You have the information I was looking for?” Glau asks in a thick accent; Clint realizes someone must have a directional mic. 

“I do,” Blacklight says, and reaches into her coat pocket with glacial slowness. She pulls out a small square external hard drive.

Glau pulls out a slightly crumpled but very thick banker’s envelope.

The two men in the Mercedes get out of the car. Clint sees Blacklight tense and take a very small step back. “What is this?” she demands.

“Merely proving to my very good associate Mr. Hemmler that you are a lying, traitorous bitch,” Glau says genially. “We don’t know who you work for, but it won’t take long before you decide to tell us.”

“They’re all on the same team,” Coulson barks. “Hawkeye, protect Blacklight, cover the package.” 

“Take out the trash, Maxwell,” Clint snaps, and Maxwell drops the two men at the bus stop with two quick shots to the backs of their heads.  
Then he moves in and puts himself between Blacklight and Glau.

Clint takes Glau’s head off in one breath, and the two guys, one of them Hemmler, in the Mercedes on the exhale. He watches the truck peripherally, but something still feels hinky to him, so he keeps his eyes on Blacklight and the box, and it’s a good thing he does. Blacklight pulls a tiny gun from her tiny purse and points it at Maxwell. Clint would just as soon blow the back of her head off, but he gently wounds her, instead, creasing her scalp and rocking her forward into Maxwell, who elbows her in the face. Maxwell comes up with the box, holding it carefully by one corner. There probably isn’t any need now; Maxwell has the box in hand, the cops are jerking bodies out of the red truck, but Clint just plain doesn’t like the idea of that kind of information floating around out there, and puts a bullet through the casing anyway, causing the whole thing to shatter into a tangle of half-melted plastic. 

“Keep it on you,” he tells Maxwell. “It’s possible they could still recover some data.”

Maxwell shoves the mangled drive into his coat pocket.

“Talk to me, Hawkeye,” Coulson says.

“Blacklight pulled a gun on Maxwell when he stepped in to protect her. I ‘gently wounded’ her unconscious. Glau is dead, and I’m pretty sure Hemmler is, too. He was in the Mercedes. No ID on the third man. Maxwell took out the two on the bus stop and the police have the red truck covered.”

“How sure are you that it’s Hemmler?” Hill demands.

“I got a good look at his face; it was him,” Clint says.

“The box?”

“Has a tragic hole in it, but it’s recovered, just in case.”

“Get to your extraction point,” Coulson says, almost very nearly sounding pleased.

Clint gets his shit together and bolts. Now that the action is over, he takes the chance that the interior stairwells will be unoccupied, and going down is immensely easier than going up had been. Spencer is parked right where he’s supposed to be, and Clint stows his gear, careful with the bow, and gets in.

They drive back to SHIELD in silence, Spencer pulling smoothly into a parking space. He doesn’t get out right away, so Clint doesn’t either.

“You pulled that whole mission out of the shit today,” Spencer says.

Clint isn’t sure what to say, so doesn’t say anything.

“Half the perimeter would have moved in without knowing about the cops, the cops would have been shooting at anything that moved, and Blacklight would have shot Maxwell.”

“You think so?” Clint asks, because that had certainly been his impression, but looking at the world through a scope is different than any other view. “You think she’s…”

“Compromised,” Spencer tells him. “And yeah, I do. You just wounded her?”

Clint nods. “Creased her scalp with a round. Wasn’t sure what they were planning to do with her, after, and any other kind of injury would have looked suspicious after all the head shots.”

Spencer nods. “Good job,” he says.

“Thanks,” Clint says awkwardly.

They get out, and Spencer reclaims the bow and locks it up, and carries away his arrows, too. It’s almost painful.

Clint takes the Cheytac and his go bag to Clint and Coulson’s quarters, figuring he might as well clean the weapon before he takes it back. He’s still revved up, and normally he might do some range time to work it off, but he’s not all that interested in range time with a gun. 

He probably could have manipulated the situation to get the bow in his hands, but he had been more effective where he was, and Coulson… Coulson had trusted him to be where he was going to do as much good as possible. For the op. For SHIELD.

He shivers a little uncomfortably at the idea of living up to that trust, and digs for a beer in the ‘fridge. He sits on the couch for the first time, and puts one boot up on the edge of the coffee table.

He doesn’t even remember he’s wearing the earpiece until Coulson’s voice says, “Mission team assemble for debrief in the round room.”

Clint has no idea where the round room is, but gamely stands up and drinks down about half of his beer, leaving the rest sitting on the coffee table, hoping it won’t get flat before he gets back.

He has to stop a young blond agent with a cheerful face to ask for directions to the round room, which she gives him without any questions, though she does look like she’s puzzled that he wouldn’t know.

The round room is nestled in the center of the maze of other conference rooms, and is indeed a big, round room. There’s a crescent shaped table, almost two dozen agents already seated at it, with space in the bow of the crescent for several people to stand. Coulson and Hill are talking in low, quick tones, Hill’s hands loquacious, while Coulson’s body exudes endless calm. Near the wall facing the crescent table is a man in a lab coat who seems to be pressing metal of some kind into discs wrapped around microchips.

 _Huh,_ Clint thinks. He’d kind of wondered how that worked. There’s a complicated looking audio/visual setup built into the wall, and another, smaller table with some files and other paperwork on it.

Clint notes that everyone who is not him are typing industriously on laptops or tablets, undoubtedly working on mission reports. He wonders if he should be doing the same, but no one tries to hand anything off to him, and paperwork is boring anyway. 

He picks a seat with empty chairs on either side and sits down.

Coulson looks up, apparently preternaturally aware of Clint’s presence, and gives him the tiniest smile known to man, but his eyes are more expressive, warm and pleased. Clint sketches him a brief salute.

Clint sits around waiting for whatever debrief is going to happen, which lasts about fifteen minutes, until Fury makes his entrance, circling around the table to join Coulson and Hill. He looks serious, but not murderous, which Clint decides to take as a good sign. The three of them talk quietly for a few minutes more, and then Coulson steps forward and everyone doing paperwork closes their computers.

“As we all know, the mission did not go according to plan,” he says. “Because some of us weren’t present, or were too busy to listen to the audio, I’m going to have it played out for you in its entirety.”

He gestures to Hill, who uses a slim remote to turn on the audio system. The video system comes to life as well, showing more than fifty angles of the meet.

“This will show you what I could see from mobile command,” Coulson says. “Try to pay attention to both at the same time.”

Hill pushes another button, and Clint, along with everyone else, listens to the set up for the mission, and then the start of the mission itself. Clint keeps his eyes on the screens, noting that even with all of his cameras and satellite images, Coulson had been at least half-blind out there. It’s no wonder that he hadn’t picked up on the undercover cops, and the bus stop had a roof on it, which hid its occupants from view of the angle of the camera nearest to it. He listens with half his attention, but mostly he watches. Coulson’s sightlines had been so narrow Clint can’t even blame anyone for what they’d missed. He thinks the SHIELD agents on the ground should have picked up on the cops and probably the guys at the bus stop, but Clint doesn’t exactly blame them for it, either. He’s done work on the ground; it’s the same problem. Sightlines. And if you are already looking out for someone or something in particular, once you’re sure that whomever you’re looking at isn’t that person or thing, you tend to dismiss them from your attention. Dangerous habit; Clint will mention it to Coulson.

A lot more of the radio chatter than Clint had realized had come from Clint himself. The plan had evolved solely between Clint and Coulson based on information Clint could provide from his vantage point above the street.

He finds himself slightly embarrassed at the glances the rest of the people at the table are shooting in his direction, but he keeps his expression bland and attentive.

They’ve got excellent shots of Maxwell taking down the two bruisers from the bus stop and stepping in between Blacklight and Glau, and even better shots of Glau, Hemmler, and their unknown associate going down under Clint’s fire. They don’t have a clear shot of Blacklight pulling a gun on Maxwell -- she’d been holding it close to her body -- but, again, there’s a great shot of her going down with a head wound, and of Maxwell lifting the drive, Clint blowing it, and Maxwell stuffing the shattered remains into his coat.

On the audio, Coulson tells Clint to get lost, and it goes on a little longer, with cleanup and conversation with NYPD, and Clint gets the idea that Coulson had wanted him clear so that the police wouldn’t have the option to question their sniper. Which is fine by Clint. 

When the audio ends, the monitoring screens go off as well, and Clint realizes as the lights come back up that he hadn’t even noticed them going down.

Coulson walks over to look at Clint across the table and slaps down a familiar looking crumpled banker’s envelope, blood spattered, but unopened. “To the victor goes the spoils,” he murmurs, as Clint opens the envelope and pulls out a thick stack of bearer bonds. He lets his hands count them while his brain considers how interestingly competitive rewards like this might make things.

It’s twenty million dollars worth of bearer bonds.

“Any objections?” Fury asks, his voice menacing on Clint’s behalf.

Clint peels about half the stack off the top. “Yeah,” he says. “I recognize the fact that I helped big time with making sure this ended as well as it could, but I was in no danger. At least one of us killed two hostiles on the scene, put himself between our operative and danger, and had guns pointed at him. Twice. Maxwell earned an even split.”

“Twice?” Maxwell asks. 

“Once by Blacklight, once by me. How far was your head from that drive?” Clint asks.

“Six inches,” Maxwell says slowly.

“But you did it, and you don’t even like me,” Clint says. He passes the stack of bonds to Coulson, who obligingly takes them to Maxwell instead. “You did at least as much as I did to keep that from going south.”

“Debateable,” Fury says, “But irrelevant. It’s yours to do what you want with. And I agree, Maxwell performed outstandingly on this mission.”

Maxwell looks flustered, but pleased. Then his eyes land on the bearer bonds, and his mouth falls open a little. Clint hides a smirk.

“The rest of you work on your reports,” Coulson says easily. “Have them to Hill soonest so she can coordinate something as accurately as possible. Since Specialist Barton has only been here one day, and can’t be expected to manage a decent written report--”

“Hey!” Clint objects.

“-- I will verbally debrief him. Any questions?”

Apparently no one has any, and Coulson comes to collect Clint, stopping only to retrieve one of the discs the guy in the back is making. Clint stands up and falls into step with Coulson as they leave the room.

“You’re not really going to verbally debrief me?” Clint asks plaintively.

Coulson smirks.”I really am. But not right now.” He ducks into an empty conference room and Clint follows him. He eases his hand around to the back of Clint’s collar and unlocks it, and slides the disc from medical and the new disc -- mission disc? -- onto the chain. Clint reaches up for the lock, and Coulson lets go of the chain, something flickering in his eyes. Clint’s heartbeat thunders in his chest and he almost does it. Almost offers.

And can’t. He locks the collar and lets his hands fall to his sides.

“You saved my mission,” Coulson says.

Clint shrugs a little. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”

Coulson nods. “But that doesn’t change anything. You were spectacular. If I put you into tactical classes, you could be running your own missions within a year.”

Clint shakes his head quickly. “I’m fine here,” he says. “I mean, in fieldwork.”

“I know,” Coulson says seriously. “Are you hungry?”

Clint stomach gurgles, and Coulson quirks up one corner of his mouth.

“Come on, I’ll show you the cafeteria. Then I’ll want to look into armor for you, and find you some civilian clothes. We can debrief at home. It shouldn’t take long. With the recordings, you basically laid out every step of your thought process, so it’ll be little details I want, like how you recognized the undercover cops and how you knew who was SHIELD on the street. Clearly you’ve got amazing instincts.”

“It’s not that complicated,” Clint says, as Coulson leads him through the halls and down three floors to the cafeteria. “Undercover people move differently, and cops do it differently than SHIELD does it. Although these particular cops did it better than most.”

“Would you be able to recognize other agencies on sight?” Coulson asks.

“Some of them,” Clint says. “FBI and CIA pretty reliably. Military by branches, sometimes. When you get into the military black ops stuff, there’s a lot of crossover. I can still tell they’re military undercover, but not necessarily which branch. Muscle almost always. Muscle always lurks the same.”

They go through a crowded hall, narrowly cutting through a huge room filled with people in cubicles, and out into the cafeteria, an open, high-ceilinged room filled with tables of people eating. He looks for a line and doesn’t find one, and when he looks back, Coulson is settling into a chair at a table for two. Clint, for lack of any other idea of what to do, sits down across from him.

Coulson looks faintly amused. “Don’t worry, you’ll eat at plenty of shitty little makeshift cafs on temporary bases, and in the field you’ll eat what you can get, but at HQ, we get this.”

Someone who is not a waiter passes them each a simple sheet of laminated paper with a fairly impressive list of food available. Clint says, “Cheeseburger, extra onion, mac and cheese?” to the not-a-waiter, who punches something into a tablet.

“Something to drink?” he asks.

“Lemonade?” Clint asks -- he hadn’t looked for beverages.

“No problem,” he agrees and turns to Coulson. 

“Spicey whitefish, rice pilaf, squash medley, and also lemonade.”

“You got it,” the not-a-waiter agrees, and turns away.

“So… who works the tables?” Clint asks.

“Interns, mostly. They split their time between menial labor and a kind of espionage boot camp.” Coulson actually smiles a real smile. “I’d love to turn you loose on their boot camp and watch you destroy their fragile egos.”

“You’re not a nice man, Coulson,” Clint says, even though he thinks it sounds kind of fun.

The food is good, and Clint feels like he could drink a gallon of the lemonade, but they make short work of it. It’s an extremely comfortable cafeteria, but it’s still a cafeteria, and the point is to get food, eat, and get out so other people can get food.

“Where next, boss?” Clint asks as they make their way a lot more casually out of the cafeteria.

“Armory,” Coulson says. “Don’t call me ‘boss.’”

Clint blinks, amused. “What can I call you?”

“Coulson, or sir, or Agent Coulson, or at times, even Phil, but not ‘boss.’” Coulson says. “It makes me feel like we should be ranching.”

Clint laughs, and catches Coulson flicking a glance at him, not exactly amused, but more… indulgent. Clint glances away quickly. He’s not sure how he feels about Coulson indulging him. It’s a little insulting, but it’s kind of a comfort, too, and not just emotionally. Some part of Clint _wants_ to be indulged by Coulson, like a… like a favorite pupil or… well, other inappropriate things.

He distracts himself by marking the faces of the people walking around them; he notices several of them with collars, either the beaten silver of assets, or the braided titanium of specialists. Some of them only have a handful of little metal discs. One slender, sloe eyed brunette has what looks like about twenty, making her collar jingle a little and look more like a necklace than a collar.

“Syria Loyola,” Coulson says, apparently aware of where Clint is looking. “She’s not a specialist, but she’s one of the best assets we have. She can do some of everything. We’d give her a specialist slot if she wanted it, but she’s an actual submissive, and being…”

“Passed around,” Clint suggests, but with more curiosity than outrage.

“Multiple partners keep her sharp,” Coulson says. “If she stays with any one handler too long, she says she starts to feel like she’s smothering, and she’s good enough that she gets a lot of leeway with her handlers, as well, as concerns other liaisons. It was -- before all this -- not that uncommon.” Coulson looks at Clint in a way that makes Clint feel compelled to look back. “Different submissives have different needs,” he says, weirdly gentle.

Clint half-changes the subject. “Maxwell is a sub, you know that, right?”

Coulson actually misses half a step and has to stumble forward to catch up to Clint, which honestly shouldn’t give Clint such a jolt of satisfaction. “Maxwell that you just gave ten million dollars to?” he asks.

“How many Maxwell’s do you think I know?” Clint asks, chuckling. “Did you see him out there? As long as I was telling him exactly what to do, he was on it in seconds. Coulson, I don’t know if you know this, but my chances of getting a dominant to hold a small plastic device up in the air so I could take it out with an enormous bullet from a sniper rifle are pretty slim. He’s got nicks on his face from the plastic shattering. He didn’t even mention them. Those are war wounds. He’ll wear them with pride until they fade, and he’ll be _sad_ when they’re gone.”

Coulson doesn’t say anything for almost a minute. Eventually, he says, “Are you as sure of your ability to identify a sub or a dominant as you are of your ability to pick out undercover operatives?”

Clint shakes his head. “Not doms or switches acting as subs, or at least not always. The cross-training sometimes confuses my feel for it. But always real subs.”

Coulson stops in the middle of the hall and pulls out his phone. “Sir,” he says after just a couple of seconds. “I have good intel that indicates that one of our junior agents is a submissive. Permission to have him evaluated?” There is some discussion on the other end that Clint can’t hear. “I’ll bring them both to Psych tomorrow,” Coulson says, and hangs up the phone.

“I hope that both doesn’t include me,” Clint says, falling into step again. “I’m allergic to mental health professionals.”

Coulson snorts softly. “It does include you, but only because we feel like you might be better at introducing the subject than one of the professionals. No matter how he feels about you, he feels _something_ about you. A psych would be a stranger. You and Maxwell have been through both kinds of the shit together. We think he’ll talk to you.”

Clint considers that. “Considering my history, I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to relate,” he confesses quietly.

“Don’t think about it. Think about how you knew, explain it to him. Things are muddled, but traditionally the handlers are there to support the subs because the subs are our warriors. Not every sub and not every handler, but politics and the military are specifically set up to mirror what our strengths are, and our subs were, or are, our soldiers. All their pain and all their fear excised outside of combat situations so that they can go in cool and ready and vicious. Not always, but you know it’s true. Submissives are just better at being assets and specialists than dominants are. They always were. He’ll listen to you.”

Clint doesn’t say anything, running that through in his mind while they walk. He isn’t done thinking about it, or what it means for him, when Coulson catches him by the wrist as Clint almost walks past a clear glass door that says ARMORY on it.

The armory people are _ecstatic_ to see Clint. Before he even manages to explain all of what he wants, they have him stripped down to his underwear and are measuring him with something that looks like it should be a checkpoint in an airport. A red grid of light appears across his skin, curving around each muscle.

“Underwear!” a girl that looks like she can’t be older than twenty demands, as she slides on a pair of glasses. Clint looks at Coulson, who merely nods, unphased. Clint strips off his underwear and tosses them in Coulson’s general direction. Coulson picks them up and folds them into his coat pocket, and Clint has to look away to hide a blush or a smirk, he’s not actually sure which. They have him move, a slow motion kind of calisthenics routine, they make him bend at the waist, and then stretch as far as he can to either side. They have him twist, the lights playing across his ankles and knees, and they have him flex, biceps bunched and then twist his outstretched arm toward the ceiling until his elbow is pointing up.

“He uses a bow,” Coulson tells them, and there are squeals of delight -- for some reason, all of the armory staff seem to be women -- and they have him demonstrate how he stands, how he pulls back, and in slow motion again, all the ways that he might have to twist and bend to get a shot off.

It would have been embarrassing, except it’s clear that while they are extremely interested in what his body can do, it’s not personal. They’re in it for the science, even when they have him march in place so they can get good measurements of his ass flexing. Clint is more amused than anything, and feeling kind of fond toward the lot of them by the time they let him put on pants.

They aren’t _his_ pants, but something along the lines of biker shorts, but of substantially thinner material, to simulate bare skin as much as possible.

Then they bring out racks of clothes, some of it looking a lot like armor, some of it not at all. The three of them put their heads together, muttering things like, “knee pads,” and “something flexible around his ribs, but able to tolerate impact,” and “what about the cobra pants?” and they pinball away from each other, each of them returning with at least one pair of pants, all of which look fairly similar to Clint.

“These!” the bossy little blonde says, and thrusts them at Clint. 

Clint drags them on -- they’re a tight fit, but not _too_ tight; just like a good glove -- and he runs through some twists and turns, jumps, rolls and vaults over a desk. They move with him, and they are padded at the knees, but he can also feel thin, flexible panels sewn into them where he’s vulnerable, the arteries in his thighs, his groin. He spends a minute just walking in them, as though he has nothing better to do, and they move with him just as well. Clint can feel the armor, but it’s not visible in the giant pair of mirrors they’ve dragged out.

“These are good,” Clint says. “I like them.”

“Take them off!” the brunette with the choppy bob demands, and Clint takes them obediently off and hands them to the blond. The brunette hands him another pair, and Clint pulls them on, running through the same basic routine. This pair is a little stiffer. It’s not enough to affect his overall performance, but there is definitely more armor to them. He likes the first pair better -- the circus performer that still lives in the back of his mind tells him they’ll be better to move in -- but he thinks it’s possible that these might be better for him, if he’s looking into real armor.

“Stiffer,” Clint says. “But that might be good. I’m not going ice skating in them. Movement is a priority, but so is defense. This pair could probably turn a knife stroke away from my skin.”

“Off!” the brunette demands, and Clint meekly turns his pants over.

The girl who looks barely twenty is standing fifteen feet away, looking at him over the tops of her glasses. She has a pair of pants in each hand. Instead of pressing a pair on him, she lays them out side by side on the floor, smoothing the wrinkles out of them. “The ones on the left are a little lighter weight, but are armored more like the second pair you tried on. The cost is that the material that isn’t armored is very lightweight. It isn’t prone to tearing, but these wouldn’t be appropriate for any kind of low temperature mission. Your legs would freeze off.” She points to the other pair. “These are armored more like the first pair, lighter weight armor, but the material is a synth-leather mesh, which will move well with you in a fight, won’t tear, will keep you warm or cool, and will definitely turn away almost anything sharp with the possible exception of arrows or knives at close range. We don’t have anything that’s going to protect you from a bullet unless you want to severely limit your range of motion.” She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “What do you think?”

“I’ll try the second pair first, but I might want to have some of each; I never know where I’m going to be in the world. Sometimes something lightweight that breathes is more necessary to my continued well being than something that can stop a blade.”

She nods and scoops them up, handing him the heavier pair first. They’re a little looser than either other pair, more like a pair of pants he could actually wear in public, but he can feel the shift of the armor around his vulnerable bits, and the knees are padded. He runs through his little gym routine twice this time, keeping it as fluid as he can, and they’re good. They’re really really good, actually. Clint nods at her. “Definitely some of these. How long to get them made?”

She laughs. “We’ve had your measurements since Agent Coulson’s initial report. We have three pair of these in your size.” She motions him to take them off. “We can have two more in a day or so.” She hands him the lightweight pants, and they are seriously lightweight. Clint slips them on, and they aren’t the kind of thing he’d wear on the street without a coat and boots, they’re snug enough to be almost indecent; he can feel how flexible the weave is, even with the additional armor. He twists, jumps, does a backflip, balances on his palm and lashes out with one foot, and settles back to his feet. 

“Two or three of these,” he says, slipping them off and handing them to her. She folds them over her arm.

“Anything you wear under these will be visible,” she tells him. “No underwear. The others are better, but you should really go without, unless you wish us to make you something like this you have on, to support you.”

“You can do that?” Clint asks, a little entranced at the idea. These are comfortable. Underwear made out of this stuff would be fantastic.

“Probably we have it in stock, but yes, easily. No more than an hour of work.”

Clint grins.

“Men and underwear,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I never wear it. But, of course, all of my parts aren’t hanging on the outside of my body.”

Coulson makes a sound that is suspiciously laugh-like.

The blond and other brunette are back again, this time their arms piled high with what are clearly armored vests. They spend several minutes holding them up to his chest, muttering, and discarding them, until they’re down to five. Two black, one blue, one gray on gray, one black on maroon. Apparently now that they aren’t anywhere near his manly parts, they’re more than willing to manhandle him into them one right after the other, taking them off again before Clint actually has time to tell how they feel.

The girl with glasses comes out with a stack of underwear, and gestures for him to put on a pair. Clint does. Any sense of shame or dignity he might have had, which Clint freely admits has never been much, is long gone. Then she hands him the synth-leather pants, this pair maybe half an inch tighter, like she’s somehow managed to take them in in the less than two minutes she’d been gone; Clint doesn’t ask, because they feel better this way, and results are what he cares about. The other two girls have discarded one of the black vests as well as the blue, and this time they let him shrug on the other black vest himself, shifting it around his body, though one of them has to show him how to fasten it; it’s a zipper, but it’s weirdly rubberized, the kind of thing that couldn’t possibly pinch you or catch on anything.

Clint briefly swings through some gymnastics, but only very briefly. “The back is too heavily armored; I can’t bend in it.”

The hustle him into the gray -- in the mirror, Clint kind of admires it -- and this one fastens with a series of snaps and clasps. Harder to get into, but as a whole, the vest is lighter. He stretches and bends, arches his back, and then stands and frowns. “Not enough armor to matter against a thrown blade or even just a really hard thrust.”

“We saved the best one,” the girl in glasses tells him, looking so honestly delighted that Clint can’t help but grin back, even feeling a little thrill of anticipation.

Clint lets them slide the vest on, manages the zip, which is similar to the first, except a flap of material folds over the zip and snaps hold that flap closed. It feels tighter than either of the other two, but when he bends, the material at his waist folds like an accordion, leaving him with almost full range of motion that way. He twists to one side, and feels armored plates across his pecs and across his ribs shift easily with the motion. He leans back, and the whole back of the vest must be a dozen narrow plates on each side, leaving him with full range of motion, but which also feels very sturdy. He swings out his arms like he’s firing his bow, and nothing twists or pinches. He hunches in a little, as he might with a sniper rifle, and everything moves and gives. Even still, he runs through a few leaps and twists, a backflip, walks a few steps on his hands and folds into a backward bridge before he stands back up.

Clint grins. “This is the one,” he says, and the blonde jumps up and down and claps her hands. He glances in the mirror, mostly to check the color, but it’s a muted shade that might even act as camouflage depending on where he is and what he’s doing. It definitely won’t give him away at night.

The girls crowd around him to point out useful pockets and loops for spare clips, and then the girl in glasses brings him something that looks like half a pair of chaps and a pair of boots. She chivies him into socks that she seems to produce from nowhere, and then the boots, and then all three of them are buckling what is clearly an extra, exterior layer of armor around his legs, cut strangely in a way that Clint just has to assume has some sort of scientifically useful purpose, defensively.

“The exterior leg armor won’t move as well, but sometimes you’ll want the extra protection,” the girl in glasses tells him. “We have three of this pair of pants, two of the other you liked, only one set of the external armor, and only one vest, but we can have the rest for you tomorrow: two more of the synth-leather pants, one more pair of the lightweight set, one more set of external armor, four more vests. Then we will keep stock for you; we know how specialists go through armor. Within a week, we should have enough to keep you outfitted even if you destroy everything you’re wearing on a daily basis.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be _that_ bad,” Clint says, and they all smile and shake their heads.

The brunette says, “It’s so cute they think that when they’re new.”

“Let’s get him armed, just to make sure nothing hangs up anywhere,” Coulson says, and brings Clint’s gun belt and shoulder harness over. The gun belt is fine, but as soon as Coulson holds out the shoulder rig, they all start tutting. Coulson glances at Clint. 

“I can manage with just a sidearm,” he says, ridiculously aware that he’s giving up a weapon so that his excitable armory team isn’t unhappy with the fit of it over all their hard work, but somehow okay with that. Coulson looks a little surprised, but doesn’t actually object to it.

“Besides,” the girl with glasses says, “it’s made to go with the bow.” She drags Clint to the mirror and turns him, while the other girls drag the other mirror over so he can see the back of the vest. There are a series of leather straps clearly designed for a quiver, or maybe two quivers, given their size, and slightly off color patch of fabric that, when pressed, produces a pair of rubberized, felt lined clamps that will hold a bow at the right angle for him to draw off his back as if it were a longsword. “They are gentle,” she tells him. “It will slide right in and out again without even smudging the surface. Just remember not to sit down unless the arms are retracted.”

“Retracted,” Clint says. “What?”

“Never mind,” Coulson says. “Don’t spoil it for R&D.”

There is a cascade of giggles at that.

“Hey,” Clint says. “Hey. Thank you guys. This is…” he waves a hand down his body, “... so much better than anything I’ve ever had.”

“You may thank us with baked goods any time you require new equipment,” the blond says, grinning. “Besides, you were one of the easiest fits ever. Not the armor, I mean; _that_ was a challenge, but we like challenges. But most men are really awkward about it. You were very professional.”

“You were doing your jobs; I was just trying not to interfere,” Clint says.

“Oh!” the girl with the glasses says, and streaks out of the room into the back. She comes back a minute later with her hands full of leather. “Arm guard,” she says, showing it to him, and then buckling it on. Clint admires the staggered, double plates running along the inside of the forearm; someone who knows how to use a bow designed this armguard. Someone who knows that a different part of the arm has to be protected depending on the angle of the shot. “And shooting glove,” she says, and holds it out while he slips three fingers into it, as she buckles it. “Maya did all the stitchwork inside; you shouldn’t feel anything but the string.” Clint flexes his hand; the glove is a perfect fit, and he really doesn’t feel any kind of seams or anything inside. “We’ll make you backups of those, too, probably several; I don’t know about archers, we’ve never had one, but they seem like the kinds of things that could be damaged easily. But for now we only have the one of each.”

“They’re gorgeous,” Clint says sincerely. “You guys are the best.”

They laugh and gather up the rest of Clint’s discarded clothes and tuck them into a pair of bags, tutting at them disapprovingly as they do, and then Coulson is leading him out of the Armory before Clint can even call a thank you over his shoulder.

“Tell me the truth,” Clint says as Coulson leads him away. “They’re actually Valkyries, aren’t they?”

“They’re actually doctors,” Coulson tells him. “Physics, Kinesthetics, Medical, Chemistry, Anatomy, something to do with polymers I can’t pronounce, at least two other fields I can’t remember right now; between the three of them, they probably have more degrees than any other department except maybe R&D, and there are a lot more people in R&D. For the Armory, they have assistants, but it’s really just those three. All the assets and specialists love them. I’m kind of surprised all three showed up for you.”

“What’s not to love about them?” Clint asks. “So they don’t usually… uh, _flock_ like that?” He is flexing and stretching in his new clothes; they fit him like a glove. Armor has never been a big part of Clint’s wardrobe, but all of this is comfortable enough to wear for hours at a time, maybe even longer. And he could easily walk the streets in this. Maybe not the exterior leg armor, but the rest of, while not precisely looking like regular clothes, doesn’t really look obviously like armor either, as long as he’s not actually armed at least. 

“No, but you already have a reputation. Mission details are classified, but no one was going to be able to miss that we kept sending more and more people to Norway.” He glances at Clint. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Clint snorts. “Contrary to what you might believe, I didn’t actually set out to become infamous before I even got here,” he says. “I can’t wait to try it with the bow.” He stops playing with his new gear long enough to take a look around. “Where are we going?” he asks.

“Home,” Coulson says. “You don’t realize it yet, but you’re exhausted.”

Clint is mildly offended. “I’ve run harder missions than that one for days at a time, Coulson,” he says.

“Not the mission,” Coulson says, sounding faintly amused. “The ‘Valkyries.’ They’ve been at you for almost three hours, and I’ve been fitted by them before. It’ll hit you in half an hour or so.”

“Yeah? What kind of armor do you have?” Clint asks.

Coulson shakes his head. “Field armor. Otherwise I stick with Dolce. You’ll get to see me in field gear sooner or later. Don’t get excited. I’m not a specialist; I don’t merit anything so extraordinary.”

“Weren’t we going to do something about my wardrobe?” Clint asks.

“What you’re wearing will work for now. You should get used to spending time in it anyway. I’ll make sure you’ve got things for your go bags, though.” He glances over, eyes sweeping Clint from head to toe. “It’s a good idea for everyone here to get a look at you like this, too. Having specialty gear is kind of a benchmark thing. Most specialists train for years before they get their custom set.”

“Why am I so special?” Clint asks.

“You don’t need any more training to make you reliably lethal,” Coulson says. “It’s best if everyone who sees you is aware of it.”

Clint thinks about that for a few seconds, and then throws back his head and laughs. Coulson stops, turning to look at him in surprise, but Clint just keeps laughing, eyes tearing as he points an accusing finger at Coulson. “I’m your… your,” Clint gasps, laughing even harder, “I’m your _trophy_ specialist,” he finally manages to accuse. “You want to _show me off_ to all the other handlers and specialists.” He breaks into guffaws again. 

Coulson rolls his eyes, but that tiny peek of a smile is showing at the corner of his lip, and just sets Clint off again. Coulson grabs him by the elbow and propels him, still laughing, to their quarters, garnering them several strange looks.

Clint collapses on the couch, clutching his belly in hilarity, and is completely unprepared for Coulson to shove him down further on his back and sprawl on top of him.

“Trophy specialist,” Coulson says, seriously, his eyes oddly intent and intense. “No one on today’s mission would ever make that mistake. You… you were incredible. And regardless of the rules, word will get around that you pulled that mission out of the ground.”

Clint stares at Coulson’s face, close and serious, and feels some kind of shadow shift across his mind.

“You pulled _my_ mission out of the ground,” Coulson says fiercely.

Clint knows Coulson is going to kiss him before Coulson even moves, and he knows he’s going to let him, so when it happens, Clint rises up to meet him and their mouths slot together perfectly. Something tumbles in his chest like the nearly silent ratchet of lockpicks separating tumblers, and he reaches up and grabs Coulson’s perfectly pressed suit coat and drags Coulson further up, further onto him, to feel the weight of Coulson pressing his body down into the couch.

Coulson groans roughly, one fist hooked into the material of Clint’s vest and the other splayed, cradling the back of Clint’s head. His tongue is hot and sleek in Clint’s mouth, teeth just barely dragging at his lips and Clint’s thighs want to fall open, would have, if their position had allowed it. Instead he arches up into Coulson’s hip and hears a soft sound escape himself, a questioning sound, and Coulson drags his fingertips along Clint’s scalp, making him shiver.

“You’re safe here,” Coulson growls, barely pulling back for there to be room for speech. “You’re always, always safe with me, but if I want you to be my ‘trophy’ specialist, it’s because I want everyone who sees your face to know you’re just as dangerous as rumor says you are. If that means walking you around in the armor for a few days, I’ll do it. If it means throwing you into the ring with other assets and specialists strictly for exhibition, I’ll do that, too. If it means I have you scheduled for range time at the height of range traffic, then that’s what it means. If it means pulling you cold onto a mission the first day you’re here just to prove to everyone that you _belong_ here, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll do anything.” Coulson is breathing hard. “You belong here.”

Then Coulson is kissing him again, and Clint feels tears prickling behind his closed eyelids, but his heart is hammering in his chest, he wants to believe Coulson so badly, he almost manages it. “You called in favors for the armor,” he gasps, turning his face. “They had my measurements and a dozen things to try on.”

“Yes,” Coulson admits, and tips his forehead to touch Clint’s temple. “Some of it they would have had anyway, they always have some of everything, but yes. Lennox owed me a favor.”

“Which one was Lennox?” Clint asks, breathing hard.

“The one with the glasses,” Coulson says.

“Why?” Clint wants to know. _”Why?_ ”

“Because you belong here,” Coulson insists. “You’re a perfect fit, and…” Coulson shakes his head. “And because I want you here.”

Clint hitches out a breath, shuddering. “You don’t know me,” he whispers, voice cracking. “Phil, you don’t know me. You’re going to be… I’m never going to be what you want.”

“You’re _already_ what I want,” Coulson says, but he tugs back, catching Clint’s hands and pulling him upright to sit beside him. “You don’t have to give me anything else, Clint,” he says quietly.

Clint pulls his hands out of Coulson’s and puts his face in them. “I have to think,” he says, and it’s true, Coulson has said a lot to him today, and he wants to think about it, but mostly he just isn’t sure he can handle being looked at right now. He thinks what he wants might show too clearly on his face; not just what he wants in bed, but what he _wants_.

Coulson doesn’t move for several long seconds, but then the couch shifts as he stands up. “Okay. I’m going to take a shower. You’re going to come over exhausted in just a few minutes, so at least take off your boots and the extra leg protection. The armor will probably not be comfortable to sleep in, but I’m betting you’ve had worse.”

“Yeah, okay,” Clint agrees, but doesn’t move until he hears the shower start running. Then he tugs at the buckles around his legs and pulls off the boots, and just shifts back lengthwise along the couch.

His thoughts are racing at the same time that his body feels almost perfectly relaxed. He can smell Coulson on his skin and his lips feel hot and swollen. He wants, and he could have.

He thinks of telling Coulson about Maxwell, about how it might be to tell Coulson about _him_ , about what that would be like.

Coulson is willing to take what Clint will give him, has been willing the whole time, but this is different. Kissing Coulson feels like leading him on in a way that the sex -- which could arguably be laid at Coulson’s feet already -- hadn’t. Coulson is setting Clint up to succeed in every way, aware that Clint won’t give himself up entirely but apparently okay with that.

Coulson wants to collar him. Clint has seen it in his face every time. But he doesn’t try.

Coulson believes that submissives are their warriors, that they’re built the way they are so that they can leave all their fear and pain and worry in the hands of their dominants, so that when they go out on a mission those things are left behind. But he seems perfectly willing to accept Clint anyway, thinking Clint can’t do those things.

Coulson is right, weariness washes over him in a wave; Clint doesn’t even consider getting up and trying for the bed. His brain feels like a white noise filter gearing up, blocking out more thought and the sound of Coulson moving around in the bedroom. Clint is almost asleep when Coulson comes out in a pair of pajama bottoms and half-sits next to Clint’s hip where Clint is sprawled on the couch.

“Tired?” he asks.

Clint sighs. “Pretend you don’t know everything about me,” he says slowly, trying to drag up what he wants to say from the smudgy depths of his mind, trying to grasp it, so that Coulson will understand.

“Okay,” Coulson says calmly. “What do you want to tell me about you?”

Normally, Coulson’s perceptiveness would make him uneasy, but right now it’s just a relief.

“In the circus, my stage name was Hawkeye, but your stage name isn’t always the same as your _circus_ name,” Clint says slowly, and it still hurts him. He might pretend, even to himself, that it’s just a memory, but it’s still wedged deep under his ribs, resistant to all kinds of exorcism. “One thing is what the marks call you; the other thing is what the other circus people call you.”

“What did the other circus people call you, Clint?” Coulson asks gently.

“Trickshot started it. Like it wasn’t a big deal. Just pushed me down on the ground next to the Sword Swallower and told me what to do. And then it just grew from that, until everyone knew Trickshot didn’t care. They called me ‘Cocksucker.’”

Coulson just sits beside him, quiet, no expectation in his face.

“I’m never going to suck your cock, Phil,” Clint says. “That’s something I’ll never do again. You don’t know me. You can’t say that I’m already what you want.”

“You’re already what I want,” Coulson says. “I don’t care if you don’t suck cock.” Coulson touches Clint’s mouth for a moment. “That’s not important to me for a lot of reasons, one of which is that it would be something that would hurt _you_ , and I don’t want to hurt you like that, Clint. And if you think about it for a few minutes, you’ll probably understand at least one of the other reasons why it doesn’t matter.”

Clint blinks up at Coulson, but his drowsy brain does eventually hit on the most likely possibility. “You’ve never had your cock sucked,” he sighs.

Coulson shrugs. “No, not really. Not like you mean. I know it’s possible, but most people can’t do it. And I want things from you,” he says. “If you wanted to try, I’d be willing to sit very still while you decided how to approach the situation. But if you don’t, I’ll never miss it. There are other things, things that I definitely _do_ want, but I won’t _surprise_ you with them, Clint. I’ll tell you when it’s something I really need. If that happens to cross over with something you just can’t give, we’ll find some way to work it out.”

Clint doesn’t know what to say, isn’t even sure what to think; it’s different from what Coulson had said before, even, and he doesn’t understand where that difference comes from. But he’s tired, the Valkyries, Coulson had been right, they had worn him out, so he just nods. That confession hadn’t gone how he’d expected at all, and now he isn’t sure what he thinks or feels. He says, “Help me get out of this armor,” and Coulson does, leading him into the bedroom first. Clint retains enough presence of mind to grab his sidearm and put it on the bedside table closest to him. Glancing over curiously, he sees Coulson’s is already on his side.

Neither of them talk about sex, but Clint rolls back against Coulson’s chest as soon as the lights are out, and is asleep almost immediately.


	6. Chapter 6

Phil is awake long after Clint has gone limp and heavy against him. The mission occupies his thoughts for a little while, how _good_ Clint had been, how he had made all the difference between success and failure, how the two of them had worked together like a well-oiled machine their first time out.

Those thoughts segue into adding tags to Clint’s collar, and the way that, just for an instant, it had seemed like Clint was going to let Phil lock it back around his neck, how Clint had leaned just a little into him, and then the moment that he’d recovered himself and done it himself.

Then he thinks about Clint laughing, hard and long, at the idea of being Phil’s trophy specialist. He’s heard Clint laugh, but nothing like that. Not that full throttle hilarity spiced with joy, and how much Phil wants to hear it again. Every day, if possible.

And then the way Clint had leaned up and let Phil kiss him, no struggle or reticence in it, just want, real want that has nothing to do with their working relationship, the sex they’d already had, the bare bones of the submission that Clint grudgingly allows him. Clint had kissed him like a lover; Phil can almost still feel it.

He can feel the way Clint had pulled back again, after, and then his ugly confession, his certainty that Phil can’t want him if Clint can’t give him everything. That Clint had been sure that not wanting to suck cock would be enough for Phil to abandon him, when the truth is, nothing Clint can or can’t allow would change the way he wants Clint.

He’s sure that Clint’s real and willing submission would be gorgeous; he’d had a taste of it last night, and it had been so good Phil can’t let himself think about it for fear of pressing Clint in some way that Clint isn’t ready to be pressed.

Negotiating Clint’s boundaries has been easier than Phil ever could have hoped for, and that’s all Clint as well. His willingness to take what Phil gives him at the same time that he’s completely honest about what he won’t give up.

Phil is grateful for it, but still craves the things he can’t have. He’s lucky, he knows. Clint just letting Phil fuck him makes him lucky, and not just because of Phil’s size. He’s lucky that Clint feels the way he does about the chastity belt, and had felt no need to hide it. Some things are rigid for Clint, maybe there will be more things that Phil doesn’t know yet, but Clint adjusts easily to the things that he doesn’t feel he has to hide, to protect.

He’s more convinced than ever that Clint is a true submissive. He wishes there was some way for him to kill Trickshot all over again for making Clint the way he is, for his fear and the way he folds in on himself. For his certainty that he can’t let anyone know the one thing that Clint feels could be turned against him, and the way that Clint doesn’t understand how it wouldn’t be like that, that _Phil_ would never be like that, and he can’t blame Clint. He remembers every word he’s said to Clint, understands the connotations Clint would have taken from them. Phil hadn’t known him then, and Clint is different, and Phil could make it so _good_ for Clint. Phil has never wanted to make it good for anyone the way he wants to make it good for Clint.

But he doesn’t have any clearer idea of how to try to talk to Clint about it than he’d had last night. He thinks of Clint almost leaning in to let Phil lock the collar around his throat, and wonders if he even needs to talk to Clint about it. It had only taken a day, that quickly reined in response, and Phil can only imagine the full extent of Clint’s need, of how long he’s denied himself, how he must be physically and psychologically starving.

He only has to remember the way Clint has responded to Phil, the way he eventually breaks apart for him, to understand how deep his need must run after so many years of absolute denial.

Is it possible that when Clint comes to really trust him, that the rest of the layers of Clint’s fear will start to fall away?

Phil thinks that would be far too simple, but hopes for it anyway.

He falls asleep with that hope, and wakes up with Clint arching against him, his ass pressed against Phil’s cock. Phil drags him in closer without thought, grinding against him, and Clint lets out a hoarse whisper of sound.

When it becomes clear that Clint isn’t going to ask -- that Clint might never be able to bring himself to ask -- Phil rolls Clint over onto his belly gently. “Get your knees up under you,” he says, and Clint does, down on his elbows, his ass in the air. Phil’s cock is already aching, but he sets that away for now. He shifts over between Clint’s spread thighs, back far enough to do what he wants, and uses both hands to spread the cheeks of Clint’s ass. Clint lets slip a brief, uncertain noise, but Phil has no intention of giving him the time to understand and maybe pull away.

He leans in and swipes his tongue along the crack of Clint’s ass, and Clint’s body goes taut as a wire with surprise. Phil has to put a little more effort into spreading Clint while he’s tensed like this, but he doesn’t let it stop him. He spreads Clint wide and slicks his tongue over his hole, feeling Clint first shudder wrackingly, and then relax slowly.

Clint tastes like leather and musk from his armor, earthy and a little sharp, and Phil begins quickly, stroking his tongue around Clint’s hole, pressing against it, making everything wet with spit, and Clint’s body eventually softens, and he starts to make low sounds, both pleasure and little hitches of surprise, and Phil drags his tongue harder against Clint’s hole a few times before he leans in and presses against the tight pucker with the tip of his tongue.

Clint chokes out a quiet gasp as Phil repeats the motion, and then Clint relaxes just a little more, and Phil’s tongue pushes past the ring of muscle and into Clint’s ass. Clint moans out loud, and shudders, and Phil fucks his tongue harder into Clint’s ass, working him open with every trick he knows, until Clint starts to rock back into it like he’s helpless to stop himself, and Phil doesn’t stop until Clint is writhing and has jerked one of the top corners of the sheet off the bed with his grip.

Phil pulls back, and Clint makes a desperate sound. “Stay just like this,” Phil tells him. “I’ll be right back.”

“Coulson,” Clint says, pleading, and Phil strokes both hands down Clint’s muscular back.

“Phil. And it’ll be worth it, I promise,” Phil tells him, and Clint lets out a little groan, but doesn’t object again. 

Phil swings his legs off the bed and goes for the boxes on the bureau. The case he wants is easy to find, though Phil hasn’t used it in a long time. He brings out the slickest lube he has, not thick enough if Phil were going to fuck Clint right now, but perfect for what he has in mind, and the other lube is still by the bed. He snatches up a cock ring at the last minute, just for the way he hopes it will make Clint feel, and then he goes back to kneeling between Clint’s thighs.

He opens the case, which contains four glass dildos, ranging from narrow to wide. The widest of them is about three quarters Phil’s girth, and almost as long. As wet and open as Clint is, Phil could probably skip the smallest, but he won’t. He wants to give Clint the whole experience.

Phil leans over Clint’s back to curl a hand around Clint’s cock, and Clint shudders full body. He strokes Clint half a dozen times, and then tugs the cockring around him, back behind his balls and around the shaft and snaps it into place. Clint sucks in a breath unsteadily, but doesn’t object.

Phil strokes his free hand along the curve of Clint’s ass, stroking his cock again, twice. Clint bucks into his hand, and grumbles out a sound of discontent when Phil lets go, prickly enough to make Phil smile a little.

Phil lubes up the smallest glass dildo and slips the tip of it against Clint’s hole. Clint is loose enough that it slides right in, and Clint gasps and makes a small, questioning sound at the same time, so that the noises tangle together into something else, something even more enticing.

“This is what I do when I want it to be easy,” Phil tells Clint quietly. 

“Easy for who?” Clint wants to know, his back arched as he pushes back onto the slender dildo just a little.

“For both of us,” Phil says.

Clint is silent for several seconds, but then can’t seem to help himself. “Why?” he asks, rocking back further, breathing quickly. “You like…”

“I like lots of things, Clint,” Phil says, and pulls the slender dildo free. This time the cranky sound Clint makes is a lot less tentative. Phil sets the dildo into the lid of the tray to be sanitized, and plucks the second one out of the tray. He slicks it not quite as thoroughly, or by the time he’s done with Clint he’ll be drooling lube. When he presses the tip against Clint’s ass, Clint lets out a shuddering breath, but he’s still relaxed, and he takes it, not quite as easily as the first, but with more enthusiasm, moaning as the rippled glass slides inside him, twisting his hips just a little as Phil fucks him with it. When he starts to rock back on it in earnest, panting, Phil merely holds it still and lets him. Clint arches his body slightly, and on the next stroke apparently manages to tag his prostate, so that he moans, open-mouthed and desperate. Phil lets him have it for another minute or so, listening to the sounds of his desperation ramp upward, and then stills Clint with a hand around his hip.

“Phil,” Clint groans, but Phil is already tugging the dildo free and depositing it with the other one.

The next is long, half as wide as Phil, and Phil slicks it up liberally. When he presses the tip against Clint’s hole, Clint presses back almost at once, and then let out a surprised shout at the size difference. He shifts his knees wider, but he rocks back only a little, experimentally. Phil shifts it inside him, pushing in to meet those abbreviated motions, and he feels it when Clint starts to relax again, loosening around the girth, at first, and then pushing back all at once, slowly, to test out the length. He breathes out roughly when it bottoms out, but he’s shivering, too. When he pulls forward, Phil intuits what he wants immediately, and pushes the dildo into Clint with a quick, long motion. Clint cries out, but his thigh muscles are trembling tellingly, and Phil isn’t surprised when Clint chokes out, “I need to come,” not asking, merely telling.

Phil ignores it, angling the dildo down and shoving it back inside; Clint writhes around the thick shaft, body shaking all over, and jerks out several effortful sounds that end up in a croaking little sob.

“I need to come,” he tells Phil more urgently this time.

“You’ll come when I’m done with you,” Phil says, and Clint lets out a harsh breath, shaking full-body, muscles bunching beautifully under all his gorgeous skin, and he groans, hips jerking, until he eventually goes looser, still shivering in the aftermath of what Phil thinks is probably his first dry orgasm. Clint is loose from it, ejaculation or not, and Phil tugs the dildo out of him, quickly. Clint lets out a surprised sound, but doesn’t have time for much more, as Phil is thoroughly lubing the last of the dildos and pressing it up against Clint’s opening.

“Phil!” Clint grates out, all but begging in his own way, but Phil takes it slow with this one, and Clint whines out loud at the stretch, but still twists, skewered as he is on it, and breathes out in rough, painful gasps. Phil presses slowly, but without pausing, all the way in, watching the way that Clint’s hole clenches and unclenches around the glass with something not unlike fascination.

Phil can feel it, when it’s his cock, but he can’t see it quite like this, which is a shame. It’s gorgeous.

Clint jerks back a little on the dildo, and away again, and then eases it back in, working out for himself how to take it, how much he can take, how hard. Phil holds it still for him, curling a soothing hand around his hip, and knows when Clint finally finds what he’s looking for. His hips rock smoothly as he takes it in, and his head drops down to rest his brow against his forearms.

“I need to come,” he whispers. “Phil.” He rocks back a little harder, a little faster, hips twisting urgently. “I need to come.”

Phil tugs the dildo out of him, and Clint shouts, “No, Phil, I… need…” Phil grabs the thicker lube from the bedside and deposits more than he probably needs directly into Clint’s stretched hole. He slicks himself up as well, and when he reaches to tug Clint over onto his back, Clint comes over at once, and Phil is stricken at the way he looks, the unconcealed need on his face, desperation gently twisted around a kind of stunned pleasure.

“Give it to me,” he whispers hoarsely, a plea disguised as a demand. He reaches up behind his head and shoves a pillow under his ass, and then reaches for Phil, pulling at him. “I need to come,” he repeats, and then, “I need your cock,” and Phil suspects he has no idea what he’s just said, and doesn’t wait for the realization to sink in. 

He just presses against Clint where he’s already loose and open, and he’s bigger, still, than the last dildo, but there is so much slick between them that sinking into Clint is gorgeous. Clint cries out, trembling but already jerking up against Phil’s first thrust, a few incredible inches. Clint’s fingertips dig into his shoulders, and then slide down to his hips, pulling at Phil, demanding and needy, his face dazed with need even as he groans at the way Phil stretches him open, working himself into Clint slowly, taking him only an inch or two at a time, in spite of the way that Clint is grasping at him, not pleading out loud, but eloquent with his hands and his body and the arch of his hips. It still takes some time, and Phil spends it watching Clint’s face flickering from pain and need, want, watching the pain fade, leaving only that need, which knots at Phil’s belly, how much he wants that, how much he wants Clint to want his cock. Phil bottoms out, and Clint twists and hooks his legs around Phil’s waist, his hands clutching suddenly at his back, leaving what Phil is sure will be long scratches.

“I need…” he gasps, eyes glittering but barely focused, “tell me.”

Phil draws back and lets Clint drag him in again with his legs. “Tell you what, Clint?” Phil asks, and he’s so hard he could come right now, but he can feel Clint’s need rolling off of him in waves, and Phil will do anything to meet that need.

“What do I do?” Clint begs. “I need to come, tell me what I have to do, Phil, tell me.”

Phil is absolutely sure it’s unfair, but he leans forward and dips down to kiss Clint, and Clint moans into Phil’s mouth, his lips open and willing and Phil presses his tongue between them and bites at Clint’s tongue gently. Clint’s body jackknifes beneath him, shoving Phil further inside, and Clint begs, “Please, I need your cock, I need to come, I need, Phil, tell me.”

Phil wants to take the time to stare, to revel in the sound of Clint’s voice broken down into what is almost pure submission, he wants to kiss Clint for at least a year, but Clint is shaking apart underneath him, his face twisted into something that is almost fearful, now, as though afraid that Phil won’t give him what he needs, and Phil doesn’t dare draw things out long enough to allow Clint to really think about what is happening between them.

“Hold your legs up,” Phil tells him, and Clint does it at once, unwinding his legs from Phil’s waist and hooking his hands behind his knees. Phil watches himself drag backward out of Clint and then slam forward again, and Clint arches his back and cries out, and tears slip out of the corners of his eyes and vanish into his hairline. Phil feels like he’s stripped down to nothing but his cock and every nerve attached to it, his spine a long line of fire.

“Please, yes,” he whines. “You’re so, I can feel everything and it’s so much, you’re so much I can’t keep any spaces,” Clint babbles, and Phil slams into him again, hard this time. Clint wails, but he doesn’t try for his cock, like it never occurs to him that the cock ring is only snaps, that he could take it off any time. The idea makes Phil’s belly twist almost painfully, that and Clint’s face, weeping and ravenous at the same time, the way he is so clearly out of his head, all his thoughts spilling out his mouth.

“How much can you take?” Phil whispers roughly, needing to hear it, even if it’s only like this. “What can I do to you, Clint?”

“Anything you want,” Clint cries, like it’s obvious. “Please, you can have anything, but I _need_...”

Phil doesn’t push him any further. He reaches out and jerks the cockring off Clint’s cock, and then fucks Clint just like he wants it, long and hard and ultra-aware of the bucking, writhing strength of Clint’s climax as Clint screams out _his name_ , cries out for Phil in his need, and Phil could come from that alone, might have, except he is as needy as Clint is for this, to have Clint like this. He wants it too much to let it go so quickly, and he fucks Clint through his loose-limbed aftermath, and then keeps fucking him, does it until Clint is whining again, his cock hardening between their bodies, and if Phil could do it, he’d drag another orgasm out of Clint, but it’s too much for him, Clint tight and writhing again, his hips jerking while his face is still dazed is too much, and Phil can’t keep himself from pressing in, harder than he ever has, shooting into Clint hard enough to skate along the very edge of pain, and letting the restless twist of Clint’s hips milk his cock dry.

Clint jerks in hurt little sounds like sobs beneath him, and Phil doesn’t think, doesn’t plan, just curls around Clint with his cock still in Clint’s ass and kisses him, coaxes Clint’s mouth open for him and puts everything he has into it. After a moment, Clint responds avidly, his hands dropping his knees and curling around the back of Phil’s neck, his teeth sharp as he nips at Phil’s lips, his tongue hot and soothing against those tiny hurts. Phil can still feel Clint trembling against his chest, and holds on, gentling his kisses, soothing Clint down, and it had all been perfect, it had been so perfect, and Phil doesn’t know what the hell he’ll do if Clint comes back to himself and hates what he let himself show.

Still, they have to part at some point, and Phil finally does. 

Clint is a loose sprawl of limbs, his face almost serene, with his eyes still clouded with satiation. He mutters something indelicate about Phil’s mother when Phil tugs his cock out of his ass, which is actually enough to reassure Phil a little. When Phil rolls onto his side, Clint rolls at almost the same time, curling into the front of Phil’s body, face pressed into his neck.

After some time, Clint asks, voice hoarse, “Can I give you a hickey?”

If it wouldn’t have been completely out of character, Phil would have said yes without hesitation. Instead, he asks, “Why?”

Clint is silent for several seconds. “What just happened… I remember it, but a lot of it is kind of confused. I feel exposed. I want to… mark you, so that I remember that you were exposed, too.”

Phil’s throat feels a little tight -- it’s more honesty than Phil would have believed Clint could give -- but he only says, “Go for it.”

Clint’s lips are soft and warm at the base of his neck, tongue sliding hotly against Phil’s skin, but instead of suction, Clint bites him, hard enough to hurt like hell, but not hard enough for Phil to pull away. Then Clint closes his lips around the bite mark, soothing it with his tongue, and sucks hard at it. Phil doesn’t doubt that it’s going be more purple than red when he’s done with it. Phil drags his fingertips through Clint’s hair almost absently when Clint is done marking him.

Clint remembers everything. Phil is sure of it. But he’s willing to let Clint pull back from it if he needs to, because he’s just so damned grateful to have seen it at all.

Phil gets a damp cloth from the bathroom and wipes down Clint’s ass and thighs, but presses him down into the mattress when Clint tries to get up and head for the shower. 

Phil finds the belt and the plug that Clint had liked, and Clint watches, his eyes still fixed in that haze of almost-submission, while Phil puts it on him.

“It’s going to get wet,” Clint says hoarsely.

“I want you walking around all day with my come in your ass,” Phil says, catching and holding Clint’s eyes. “That’s something I need, Clint.”

Clint nods slowly, not arguing about the wet leather dampening his pants.

Phil doesn’t think it’ll show through the armor pants anyway, but if Clint isn’t disposed to argue it either way, Phil doesn’t feel the need to mention it. He sits down next to Clint on the bed. Clint watches him, a little wary now, but Phil just gathers the dildo kit together and doesn’t ask any questions.

“Those are…” Clint pauses for a long moment. “Those are very cool.” His voice is a little deep when he says it.

Phil smiles. “I had them made for this,” he says. “So I could work someone up to… well, me.”

Clint smirks a little. “Well, they work,” he says, and stretches across the bed like a starfish. “It was still hard, but definitely not _as_ hard.” Clint cocks his head. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Phil says.

“What do you like about the pseudo-rape it usually is?” Clint asks.

Phil almost drops the box.

“Because it is. Even after the first time, when it really was, that’s how you like it. To force it.” Clint’s expression is curious; there’s nothing disapproving there.

Phil knows the answer, but has never been asked the question. It takes him a few seconds to formulate a reply. “It’s the way that _feels_ right to make you struggle to take it,” he says finally. “Does that make me a deviant? Almost certainly. But that’s what it comes down to. I like other things, some of them a lot, but it _feels_ right when I take it, when I force it like that.”

“Is that a dominant thing, or a you thing?” Clint asks.

“Part of it is a dominant thing, but I think my size makes it mostly a me thing,” Phil admits.

Phil waits, but no other questions seem forthcoming. “I’m going to get in the shower,” he says finally, and Clint nods. Phil leaves the dildos on the kitchen counter, where he can sanitize them later; when he passes back through the bedroom, Clint is still on his back, his gaze not quite focused, face still and easy. Phil hurries through so Clint can take whatever he can get from his subspace, though in any other circumstances, Phil would have loved to have helped Clint linger in it for a few hours.

Phil has to jerk off in the shower again to the memory of it all, biting his lip to keep himself quiet when he remembers Clint telling him he’d do anything. God, he was gorgeous like that. Phil will take what he can get, but he’s halfway to desperate to get to have it when Clint is actually offering it to him, when he knows what he’s giving, not just having it drawn out of him.

Three days ago, Phil would have said it wouldn’t have made a difference one way or the other, but three days ago, Phil had never had a submissive. Ben had never been _his_ , and he’s had people acting in that capacity under his command, but it’s not the same. Phil had known that, but he hadn’t known _how much_ it isn’t the same.

Clint isn’t like anyone he’s handled before; Clint would eat any one of them for breakfast, and could probably take them on all at once with a high degree of certainty of winning.

His understanding of how much their lack of submissives is weakening them is sudden and sharp, and he has to lean against the sink, bracing both arms rigidly to hold himself up, feeling stupid at his inability to see, feeling a sharp, exigent need to take everything SHIELD has about the problem and look at it again, maybe with Clint this time.

He eventually towels off and brushes his teeth and whatnot. When he comes out of the bathroom, Clint is holding a pair of his new underwear.

“Wear these?” he asks.

“Will they fit?” Phil asks; it only occurs to him after the fact that he hadn’t asked why.

“They’re stretchy,” Clint says and holds them out to Phil.

Phil drops his towel and slides them on. Clint’s right. They’re sleek and provide just enough elasticity to cling to Phil as easily as they’d clung to Clint last night. They’re also obscenely comfortable. “Wow,” he says.

Clint grins. “Yeah,” he agrees. “You should ask the Valkyries for some of your own.” Then he cups Phil’s cock through the thin material until Phil starts to harden despite two orgasms, apparently just so Clint can see what Phil’s cock looks like through the material.

Then Clint leaves to take his own shower, leaving Phil physically half-hard and psychologically fully revved.

“Little bastard,” Phil murmurs. He has no doubt that Clint had known exactly what he’d been doing. And then Phil blinks a little, because _Clint_ had known exactly what he was doing; he was, in his own way, putting Phil in the same kind of headspace that the belt puts Clint into. It’s more for Clint than Phil, he understands. Phil isn’t built to respond like that, but knowing Phil is wearing Clint’s underwear under his suit will heat Clint every time he thinks about it all day. And Phil is surprisingly okay with it. Getting Clint off gets Phil off, and like the bite mark, Phil is fine with some degree of reciprocation. 

Phil gets dressed in dark gray, and only notices that his collar doesn’t entirely hide Clint’s mark when he’s adjusting his tie in the mirror. He looks at it for a few seconds, considering, and then decides he just doesn’t care. He’s willing to give this to Clint, too, he’s willing to let it be obvious that he let Clint mark him like that, if that’s what he needs.

He makes a couple of calls just to make sure his appointments are still standing, and then rifles through their ‘fridge and pantry to see what kinds of breakfast food they might contain. He manages a creditable ham and eggs before Clint saunters out of the bathroom in nothing but the belt, and then homes in immediately on the smell of food. Phil just hands him a plate. If Clint wants to eat wearing nothing but a chastity device and a collar, Phil is going to just sit back and enjoy it.

They finish eating, and as Clint is pulling on his pants, he asks, “Is the kissing going to be a thing?” His voice is more tentative than Phil has ever heard it, and he turns to face Clint at the sound of it. Clint is looking away, but Phil can see that the curve of his cheek is flushed.

“Do you want it to be?” Phil asks.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to answer a question with a question?” Clint says, tone a little brittle. Then he sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I thought… when we were talking about it, before we came here, it all sounded kind of practical. That it would be like being business partners.” He makes a face to show that he knows how that sounds. “I know it doesn’t really make sense; you told me how it would be. But I didn’t really get it. And I didn’t expect it all to be so… personal.”

“Do you think it would be better if we were more like business partners?” Phil asks carefully, but with some degree of dread; if this is Clint pulling back from what had just happened between them, Phil can’t do anything to really stop him. Phil can still fuck him, maybe he can even pull him into subspace, but if Clint hates it… 

If Clint hates his subspace, Phil won’t try to push him any deeper into it than Clint seems comfortable with. Even though it will drive Phil insane every time he touches Clint, to know it’s there and he could have it, Phil won’t force the issue. 

Clint still doesn’t quite look at him as he pulls on his vest, but he shakes his head minutely; Phil feels a little dizzy with relief. “But that’s not the question right now. I just want to know about the kissing. Is it going to be normal, now, to do that? Is it only going to happen in bed. For fucks sake, is it like we’re dating?”

“It can be however you want it to be,” Phil says. “Though, no, I wouldn’t say that we’re ‘dating.’ It’s also impossible to ignore the fact that we’re in a relationship of some sort, even if it’s the kind that defies an easy definition. The degree of that relationship depends a lot on what you’re comfortable with, Clint.”

Clint turns, fastening the front of his vest with nimble fingers. “What are you comfortable with?” he demands.

“I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give,” Phil says seriously. “If that’s what we have right now, that’s fine. If this is too close, we can work on backing off from here. If you want more, you can have it, however much more that is.”

Clint lets out a frustrated sigh. “You’re not really telling me what _you_ want,” he points out.

“Yes, I am,” Phil says. “You’re just not listening. I want it all. I want every single thing. I want more than I’ve ever wanted from anyone. But I can accept what you’re willing to give.”

Clint stares at him gravely. “You _want_ a submissive.”

“I want you,” Phil says, very clearly. “I want whatever degree of submission you’re able to give me, but that’s tangential. I want Specialist Agent Clint Barton.”

Clint looks a little stricken. “You don’t _know_ me,” he says.

“I know enough, for now. In time, I’ll know more. That’s how it works. In time, we’ll both know almost everything about each other. I’ll make sure you’re doing work you love and I’ll protect you at all costs, and you’ll trust me with your life and with your body. But I already know enough to know that this won’t be a business arrangement, and I don’t have any doubts about who I want my specialist to be.” Phil gives Clint a look that he wants to be neutral, but knows is too sharp, too hard. “You can be reassigned if you _do_ have doubts.”

“No!” Clint starts, and then bites his lip. “I mean, I don’t want to be reassigned.”

Phil feels himself relax.

“I’m just a little confused at how this is working, or how it’s supposed to be working. Maybe if I wasn’t so used to being alone, it wouldn’t feel like it’s all happening at once.” Clint shakes his head. “I didn’t mean to make you think I didn’t want you to be my handler,” he says softly, an apology, something Phil doesn’t doubt for a moment is a rarity from Clint.

“It’s okay,” Phil says. “I know things are changing for you quickly. If you need a break, I can make that happen.”

“I don’t need a break,” Clint says. “I need a… a routine, I guess.”

“Give me two days,” Phil says. “Two days will get all the unusual things out of the way, and I’ll settle you how you need to be settled. Until then, can you roll with it for a while longer?”

“You’re so anal,” Clint says, and chuckles. “That you already know it will be two days.”

“It’s my job to know,” Phil says, but quirks a little smile at Clint. “It’s my job to keep you settled and happy.”

Clint doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he says, “Extra leg gear, do you think, or leave it?”

“Usually, here, I’d tell you to leave it,” Phil says. “At this point, though, you ought to take the chance to get used to how you move in it while people are not actually trying to kill you.”

“You make a good point,” Clint concedes. “Let me try all the buckles on my own first, but if I get cross-buckled, you have to step in.”

“Agreed,” Phil says, amused. He watches, but there’s really no chance of Clint getting cross buckled and they both know it. His hands are as nimble on the buckles of the leg armor as they are on everything else. Phil gets his first really close look at the extra leg protection, and while he had noted that it wasn’t exactly the same on one side as the other, he hadn’t really noted the differences. This time he sees that Clint is more protected on his right side than his left, the extra leg gear running all the way down the back of his leg and buckling into his boot. On his left, it merely overlaps the protection of the armor that’s built in to protect the artery in the thigh, and then is cut diagonally so that it wraps around the top of Clint’s knee. Phil is sure there are scientifically sound reasons for the cut, but mostly Phil admires it because it looks cool. His lips twitch. Yes, some part of him will be twelve forever.

Clint buckles his sidearm around his waist, checking twice to make sure he has a good draw, and then fills the loops in the vest with extra clips. He clips his phone to his belt, tucks his earpiece into a little pocket, and wonders aloud, “Do I have a wallet? I mean, I didn’t when you took me, just some cash in my jacket, but shouldn’t I have an identity?”

“One of our first stops,” Phil says. “We’ll have to hurry to get there before the office clears out for lunch.”

Clint blinks. “Did we really just spend most of the morning in bed?” he asks, looking genuinely surprised.

Desire curls low in Phil’s belly; time loss like that is a very submissive quality. “We really did. To be fair, the kind of prep I did takes a long time to do.”

“Huh,” Clint says, then shrugs. “Lead on, then,” and Phil does, Clint following until they’re in the hall and then falling into familiar step.

Phil takes Clint back to Administration, where Adria is just three minutes from escaping her post. She gives Phil a disapproving look, but she reaches under her desk for a tray, and passes it to Clint.

Inside is a badge and ID Card in a folder, a wallet with a driver’s license and several credit cards in it, all under Clint’s name, and a thick envelope that Adria tells him not to open until he can do so in private. Phil plucks it out of Clint’s hand and slides it into his coat. Clint looks curious, but doesn’t object.

“So that’s it?” Clint says. “Now I’m an Agent of SHIELD?”

Adria grins. “Unless you really do something stupid, that’s it. SHIELD doesn’t have a probationary period. You’re an agent as soon as you join, and remain one until death or retirement.”

“Well, that’s simultaneously cool and terrifying,” Clint says, and Adria laughs.

She passes off a disc to Phil -- Clint watches this with uncertain eyes -- and Phil puts it into his jacket pocket.

“Sorry about your lunch,” Clint says, apparently sincerely.

Adria waves it away. “It starts when I say it starts and ends when I say it ends,” she says, and stands up, slinging the strap of a bag over her shoulder. “See me if there are complications with any of the paperwork.”

“Paperwork?” Clint asks.

“The envelope will have passports, other identities, codes to memorize, things like that,” Phil says. They just ate, so he assumes Clint doesn’t want lunch, and turns them away from Administration and toward the elevators to take Clint to Psych. “This is going to be the least favorite part of your day,” Phil tells Clint as they walk.

It doesn’t take Clint long to figure it out. “Ugh. Maxwell,” he says. He glances at Phil. “Are you sure I should be doing this?” he asks.

“He successfully hid it from every evaluation he took leading up to SHIELD,” Coulson says. “We have to assume he has a reason for it. If he’s a submissive, he doesn’t necessarily have to train as an asset or a specialist, if that isn’t what he wants, but maybe he’s not aware of that. Although he should be, it’s in the training materials. The point, though, is that SHIELD missed it, but you didn’t. It has to be addressed, and there’s a good chance he doesn’t have a lot of respect for SHIELD’s ability to evaluate him. You are something different. You work as a specialist without identifying as a submissive, and you yanked his chain hard enough to nearly break it while he was trying to recruit you. But when you needed a face in the crowd, you picked him without hesitation, and with no objection from him; you directed him, he responded with immediate precision and obedience, and you might have saved him from being shot by Blacklight. And he let you shoot that drive at more than a thousand yards, probably fully aware that if you missed, the best he could hope for would be to lose the hand. There’s something about you he responds to. Some of it may be negative, but it’s all honest, Clint, and that’s what we need. Someone who he’ll respond honestly to.”

“Isn’t doing this in Psych sort of defeating the purpose, then?” he asks.

“No other choice,” Phil says. “This is a mandatory intervention; Psych is letting you handle the initial meet out of courtesy to Fury. They don’t have to.”

“Why would they, really, though? Beyond Fury, I mean?” Clint asks. “It’s not like I’ve got qualifications.”

“Because this isn’t like any other agency. Psych really is here to help, and not in the way that gets you in touch with your inner child. These people are soldiers, and they will continue to be soldiers, and they have problems that soldiers contend with. Psych teaches them to deal incident by incident. They do their best to integrate some therapy that will help keep trauma at bay, as well, but their job is to keep our people up and moving.” Phil glances at Clint, who looks thoughtful. “There are such things as mandatory evals, here, but most of the people that need this just come see them when they need to. You’ll adjust to it. They’ll let you meet with Maxwell because I think you have a shot at connecting with him, and it doesn’t hurt to try it.”

“But he knows the meeting is here,” Clint says. “Which means if he’s hiding, he’s already defensive.”

“I’m not arguing that,” Phil says. “But this is our only option for this kind of a meeting, because it _is_ a mandatory eval.”

Clint sighs. “I should have kept my mouth shut,” he says.

“No, you did the right thing. If he’s a submissive and is repressing that, he needs help. Even if he doesn’t want to act in a submissive capacity, he still needs help and direction from some form of dominant to stabilize him.”

“He can do that?”

“Of course he can. The system is the system, but it doesn’t chew people up and spit them out. There are failsafes. He’s a good junior agent right now, submissiveness notwithstanding. If that’s what he wants to be, we can make that happen. But we need to know what we’re dealing with so that we can resource properly.”

“Let me clarify,” Clint says, stopping in the hall to turn to look at Phil. “If he doesn’t want to interact sexually with anyone at all, ever, he has that right?”

“Yes,” Phil says.

“But if he chooses to take that route, and his nature becomes known, he has no one to protect him from anyone that might see him as available,” Clint says.

“Correct. But that’s why we need to know, Clint. So we can protect him from that. We can classify this information, lock it down so tight it doesn’t even exist in his file, we can keep him in positions that don’t usually suit submissives if that’s what he wants, we can assign him a partner that’s a dominant if he needs it to function as an agent. He’s nearly ready for a partner already. All these things can be dealt with.”

“But when _I_...” Clint says, eyes narrow and glinting, and Phil understands the question, is even mostly prepared to answer it, but then Phil watches Clint shut that thought down. “No, we can talk about that later,” he says, almost as if to himself. “Will they be recording us?” he asks.

“No. Psych is the real deal. You get all the privacy you request. Most people don’t worry about it, because we don’t hold it against them,” Phil says fiercely. “They won’t record anything without his permission.”

Clint’s expression lightens a little. “You seem pretty solidly behind this division,” he says.

“I’ve been here, both officially and on my own time,” Phil says. “I’ve needed help, and I’ve gotten it. I’ve had assets and specialists come here for a few days or a few weeks, and come out whole again, or as whole as they ever were. I trust them.”

“Okay,” Clint says finally. “Then I’ll take your word for it.”

They start walking again at the same time, and eventually make their way down six floors to what is actually labelled ‘PSYCH’ on the door. Phil sees Clint’s surprise, and is a little amused.

“We don’t really feel the need to dress things up,” Phil says.

“Except for the name of the agency,” Clint snorts.

“Yes, but we were going for the acronym there,” Phil says unapologetically.

“At least you don’t deny it,” Clint says.

Clint is laughing quietly as they let themselves inside. A tall black woman with amazing cheekbones smiles dazzlingly at them. “Agent Coulson,” she greets Phil. “I assume this is Specialist Barton?”

She offers her hand, and Clint takes it.

“I’m Agent Sands. Agent Maxwell is waiting for you in the first office off the left branching hall. If you find yourself in an emergency situation, there is a panic button behind the desk.”

“Thanks,” Clint says. “But unless I push that button, I don’t want any interruptions. Even if it sounds like we’re fighting.”

Agent Sands laughs. “We wouldn’t hear you if you were,” she says. “All the suites are soundproof and there is no surveillance equipment at all. Unless you push the button, you’re on your own. How long do you expect to be?”

Clint considers. “Give me an hour with him,” he says finally. He glances at Phil. “You’re sure this should be me?” he asks, looking… not nervous so much as a little pained. Phil thinks it’s possible that Clint feels like he ratted Maxwell out.

“Just do what you can,” Phil says. “Tell him the truth. Tell him what you saw, yesterday. And no matter what he thinks, he is not in trouble with SHIELD. He’s in no danger of losing his rank or his job. We just want to help.”

Clint nods, and says, “Sir,” which surprises Phil a little, until he realizes that as far as Clint is concerned, this is a mission, which is when he tends to pull out the soldier/cop vernacular. Phil nods, and Clint walks off to the left branching hall. Phil hears the door open and then close again.

Then he pulls his tablet out of his jacket pocket and settles back in the waiting area, aware that he’s far more worried about Clint than he is about Maxwell in this situation. The logic is sound, and he trusts Clint not to make a hash out of it, but there’s no denying that the subject matter is going to hit pretty close to home for Clint. Phil doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. He still thinks Clint is their best option for a positive outcome on first contact with Maxwell.

He fills out Clint’s mission report from yesterday while he waits. At some point, he’ll have to teach Clint to do it himself (Clint, he is sure, is exactly the kind of guy to go to extreme lengths to avoid paperwork). He’ll have to do a report on Maxwell, for example, and probably quickly. 

For yesterday, there will still be a few things he has to go over with Clint in a verbal debrief, but the recording had been pretty comprehensive and the outcome unequivocally positive. Several times Clint had taken initiative in a way that a SHIELD trained specialist probably wouldn’t have, but Phil, Fury, and Hill are all in agreement on that score. He hadn’t overstepped. He’d fulfilled his primary goal, which was to facilitate a successful operation. 

Fury had talked about using the mission as training material, or even having Clint spend time with assets, specialists, and junior agents in small groups to talk them through his reasoning. SHIELD turns out the best espionage and black-ops teams and assets in the business, but there is always something that can be done better, and Clint had done it better. He’d done it almost perfectly, really. He had taken over intel without taking over the op itself. Considering his history, it wouldn’t have surprised Phil if Clint had tried to run the op from his perch, but he hadn’t made any attempt to do so. He’d relayed the facts and let Phil and Hill manage them. The only thing he’d taken control of had, in fact, been Maxwell; it’s hard to say if Maxwell would have taken the initiative on his own, and it’s unfair to second guess him. But Clint, at least, had seemed to think Maxwell had needed the order, and everyone else had been busy, so Clint had given it.

Phil isn’t willing to second guess Clint’s reasoning, either.

Usually Phil is good at waiting. Having Clint suddenly on his plate has created a backlog in pretty much every area of his job, and he spends time sorting through things in his email that look urgent, but it’s almost mindless, like arranging your iTunes by mood. It takes almost none of his attention, and the longer Clint stays locked in with Maxwell, the less Phil even bothers with it.

After forty-three minutes that feel like days, Clint comes out, carefully closing the door behind him, and goes to the agent at the desk. “I don’t know how security clearances really work here, yet, but he needs someone with a very high one. He has to talk about some personal things, but he also has some priority intel.”

Sands is already on the phone with someone, and thirty seconds later, Phil hears the door down the hall open and close again. Less than a minute later, whomever is with Maxwell calls Agent Sands that lasts about five seconds, and then Agent Sands is calling Hill.

Clint stands facing Phil, pale and taut looking. “I can’t tell you,” he says, but it sounds almost bitten out, like Clint wants to tell Phil desperately. “It will come down to you from Fury or Hill, but I promised him, Phil.” Clint’s voice is aching.

“I understand,” Phil says, not even bothering to wonder why Clint is calling him by his first name in public. He stands up and shoves his tablet into his pocket. “Let’s get you out of here,” he says, because Clint looks like he needs to be away from here, and because Phil doesn’t want anyone to see Clint looking like he looks right now. But because it’s Clint, Phil can and does say, “Guard your face, specialist,” and Clint’s face just shuts down, a bored mask. 

They exit the Psych department, and Phil murmurs, “Do you need to go home?” almost silently.

“No, I need,” Clint grates out, “I need to beat the hell out of something.”

Phil takes him straight to the training area, and is on his knees unbuckling the extra leg armor and his holster before Clint seems to realize where they even are. 

“I don’t want to kill anybody, Phil,” Clint says, looking straight at Phil, asking for the answer he needs, and Phil takes him down to the specialists training area, where several specialists are kicking the shit out of one another. Spencer is standing on the sidelines, drinking from a bottle of water, and Phil more or less shoves Clint at him.

“He’s had a shock,” Phil says softly. “He needs an outlet.”

Spencer circles around to an empty piece of mat and makes a ‘come on’ gesture at Clint. Clint has the advantage in the armor, but Spencer is hands down better at close range combat, and neither of those things matter. Clint’s attacks are savage, and Spencer does just enough to counter and re-engage, and Phil can tell that Spencer is just wearing Clint down, giving him the mental space to get himself back under control.

It’s weirdly mesmerizing to watch, partly because Phil knows Clint is better than this, but also because it’s the first time Phil has seen Clint throw away his control.

Sexually it drains away, it’s like the tide moving out to uncover something precious at its retreat, but here, now, it’s just something raw and hungry that Clint has to let out, let loose, so that it doesn’t rip him apart from the inside out.

And even in his rage, even with the differences in their skill levels, Clint is fast and cunning. They are both bleeding within the first minute, and panting and clutching at their bruises within the first five. The other specialists have all backed away, watching with knowing faces, like they understand exactly what is happening, no details necessary.

Phil understands it, too. He has seen and heard things that just can’t be kept quiet, he has used his fists to exorcise whatever his mind is holding onto; he’s been in the field, and that’s part of it, but at least as often there are things he reads off of computer screens and out of classified file folders that pound inside his head like drums until he finds some physical way of breaking them down into a numb kind of acceptance. He goes it alone on the bags or trains with the assets, not the specialists, but it’s the same kind of thing.

Clint knocks Spencer sprawling after twenty-five minutes or so, and Spencer catches him by the ankle and drags him down with him, and by some silent signal, neither of them get up again. They lay on the floor, panting and bleeding, and Clint’s face has a hazy look to it, like he has found a place to stand, mentally, to get some distance. He rolls up to his knees first, offering Spencer his hand, and they more or less pull each other to their feet, staggering over to a table for water, and to let a med tech clean up their injuries and check for anything serious.

“That armor is badass,” Spencer tells Clint, panting. “I couldn’t get a thing across your ribs.”

“Probably the only thing that kept me upright for more than three minutes,” Clint says, grinning, his gaze clearing. “You’re my backup of choice for ground missions, Spencer. What do your fists weigh, two tons each?”

Spencer salutes him with a bottle of water, and then catches Clint’s shoulder and drags him into his chest, murmuring in his ear. Clint leans his forehead against Spencer’s shoulder for a moment, nodding, but not speaking as far as Phil can tell. Spencer squeezes Clint’s shoulder and lets him go.

The specialists that had been spectators are smiling faintly now, watching Clint with care in their eyes, and Phil realizes they’ve just accepted that Clint is one of them. There are probably other ways this happens; Phil has no way of knowing. But this time, Clint coming to them and showing them how he looks when he’s torn up inside, is enough. Phil can’t be anything but glad for him.

It doesn’t bother him at all when Spencer takes the time to introduce Clint to the ten other specialists present. Phil is in favor of Clint having allies, no matter how he gets them.

Eventually, though, Clint comes back to Phil, his gait easier, his face calmer. Phil helps him buckle on the extra leg gear and hands over Clint’s sidearm.

“Thanks,” Clint says.

“Anything you need,” Phil says honestly, and Clint looks a little lost for a moment, eyes locked with Phil’s with something that almost seems like a question, before he looks away and nods.

“I assume you had other plans,” Clint says a little wryly. His hair is sweat darkened, and it looks like he’s going to have a killer bruise across his right cheekbone, but Spencer had been careful of his eyes.

“Do you want to grab a shower first?” Phil asks.

Clint shakes his head. “The armor is already sweaty, and I don’t have anything else to put on. Besides, I’m going into this assuming people are going to see me in much worse condition than this.”

“Wise of you,” Phil agrees. Phil is expecting a call from Fury, but it could be a while, depending on whatever intel Clint had claimed Maxwell had, and could be even longer if Maxwell is in enough distress to have trouble relaying that intel. “I thought you might want a look at your bow,” Phil says, and is rewarded with Clint’s genuine and delighted smile.

“R&D is close by,” Phil says. “They don’t handle weapons solely, but they have an entire department devoted to it, and they’re a target for anyone trying to infiltrate or attack a SHIELD facility. They’re always close to the training areas; it lets us send dozens of armed men and women at them immediately while the rest of us scramble.”

“Not a bad plan,” Clint says, and brushes his hand down his vest. “And I really need to send the Valkyries some kind of thank you note or something.”

“They weren’t kidding about the baked goods,” Phil says. “I’ve seen Maya eat her weight in cupcakes.”

Clint laughs, and they turn a corner into a hall with R&D on the single door. 

This door has a security checkpoint and armed guards, which Clint responds to merely with arched brows. Phil gets the usual retinal scan, and one of the guards shows Clint how to get his collar scanned. Clint looks thoughtful about that, but doesn’t object.

The thing that Phil always forgets about R&D is that it’s noisy. It’s one enormous room, warehouse sized, and has dozens of projects going on at any given time, and it’s all just loud. He sees Clint’s surprise, and shrugs. “We tried to make it so they all had to communicate over comms, but apparently that reduces productivity,” Phil tells him. “Shouting over one another is in some way helpful to the scientific process.”

“You bad mouthing us again, Phil?” Hardison asks, offering his hand to Clint immediately.

“Alec Hardison, doctor several times over. Just Hardison is fine,” he says. “You must be Clint Barton. Spencer says good things about you.” He rolls his eyes a little. “And we all know how much Spencer talks.”

Clint grins a little. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says. “Someone told me the Holy Grail of recurve bows lives here.”

“I didn’t say ‘Holy Grail,’” Phil says placidly.

“Might as well have.” Clint bounces on the balls of his feet. “Can I see it?”

“You’ve got good timing,” Hardison says. “Not only can you see it, but my feelings will be hurt if you don’t test it out for me.”

Clint’s grin is a mixture of feral and joyous. It’s a little disturbing and a lot hot; Phil can feel himself shifting a little in Clint’s Valkyrie designed underwear.

“Come on, I’ve got a kind of mini-range set up. We’ve been testing them as we’ve gone through prototypes, but we don’t have anyone here that can really tell us what we’re doing right. A few of the assets and specialists have experience, but nothing like your skill, and none of them are left handed. Honestly, if we hadn’t found the one you left in Croatia, I’m pretty sure we would have screwed up right from the beginning.” 

As he’s talking, he’s leading them on a winding path toward the east corner of the room, walking around or ducking under obstacles absently. “You make them yourself, don’t you?” he asks, and barely glances around to see Clint nod before he goes on. “I knew you had to have; I’ve never seen anything so meticulously balanced, and I’ve got crates and crates and more crates of them that I ordered to try to match it or surpass it. Nothing compares, not even the ones that big game hunters use; it’s a thing of beauty, man. That’s why I didn’t use it to experiment on, I just recreated it to the best of my ability. No reason to ruin something perfect to try to make it better. So what I have for you isn’t the bow that you’re used to, but it should mimic everything you know, and give you some other options, and no offense to you, man, but in some ways it should be better. That’s what I do.” He glances at Clint. “I take the best there is and I make it better.”

He stops, finally, in a walled off corner of R&D that cuts the noise down considerably. There are bows lining the walls, all of them looking subtly different. Phil sees Clint’s bow on one end, and once he does he can see the progression of Hardison’s experimental models, many of which look pretty similar, until they get close to the far end, where the smooth, sleek lines of Clint’s bow start to look more and more technical. 

Hardison lifts down the last one in the row and hands it to Clint. “Just start small and tell me what you think,” Hardison says.

Clint turns the bow over and over in his hands for a few seconds, studying an array of what look like buttons just under the grip. He closes his hand around the grip and holds the bow out. “Good weight and balance, and it’s solid. It feels like I could use it like a staff if I had to.”

Hardison looks pleased. “You could. It’s at least fifty times stronger, material wise, than the original bow. You could use it like a staff, or like a club, if the arms aren’t extended.”

“Extended?” Clint asks, puzzled.

Hardison beams. “I asked myself, how does a man that uses a bow as his primary weapon wander around carrying it all the time? Obviously, you keep it in a case, but your bow is almost as tall as you are, and that’s got to be awkward to get out and into play in the middle of a fight. So how could I make that better? Obviously you’ll still have to use a case, but it will be smaller, less noticeable, and you won’t have to worry about getting the bow to slide out cleanly, which is a problem I ran into with some of the experimental models.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clint says, but Phil can tell by his tone that Clint is dying to be enlightened.

“The panel under the grip has some buttons on them, can you feel them? You should be able to do it one handed in the field with a little practice.”

“Yeah, I feel them,” Clint says, his ring and pinky fingers playing over the buttons lightly without pressing them. 

“Good, now, underneath that array, on the underside, there’s a fingerprint reader. It’s small, just tiny, but don’t worry about where you put your finger on it, it will take any part of your print from any finger of either hand. So find that,” Hardison directs.

Clint, frowning, slips his pinky under the panel and the bow makes a relatively quiet snapping sound, and both the upper and lower curves of the weapon snap into the central body of the bow. Clint stares at it, obviously fascinated. 

“And then to get them to extend, just jerk your arm forward, like you were going to punch someone in the face, but with a little upward twist of your wrist, either direction,” Hardison instructs.

Clint snaps his fist forward, and the arms snap out. Clint holds the bow parallel to the floor and begins examining the arms and the housing, his steady fingers running the length of each of the arms, twice, to examine either edge. “You had trouble keeping the arms from grating along the casing,” Clint guesses.

“Which affected balance and aim, after a while, but this one is accurate within microns, man, microns.”

“String?” Clint asks.

“Inside the grip,” Hardison says, and Clint explores the grip, finds the string, and then expertly strings the bow. Hardison takes a careful step back, which makes Clint grin.

“I don’t have anything to shoot you with,” he points out.

“Yeah, but. I don’t know if this is an insult or a compliment, but I’ve had my hands all over that thing, and I’ve watched a dozen other people handle it, and even fire it, but this is the first time it’s really looked… dangerous.” He shakes his head. 

“It’s the way he holds it,” Phil says quietly, understanding exactly what Hardison is trying to say. It gives Phil a faint shock, too, even knowing the havoc Clint had wrought on the SHIELD agents that had gone after him, he’s never seen Clint with his weapon of choice in his hand. It’s like watching something clarify in front of his face, like Clint goes harder and sharper all over. Like the bow completes him. “Like it’s an extension of his body.”

Clint gives him a brief glance, lips a little curved, then turns back to Hardison, gesturing toward the long, narrow range that stretches out several hundred yards, the walls made of clear plexiglass. There are several little flags sprouting from it. “To keep track of the range?” he asks.

“Just maximum distance fired,” Hardison says. “Not factoring in anything like inclement weather or wind or even accuracy. Just how far the bow could be shot. That last red flag is two hundred and eighty yards, and didn’t come close to the target. Actually, you can see where it scratched the glass there. The furthest green flag is one hundred and sixty yards, with a hit on the target. Not a bullseye, you understand. Just a hit, and again, nobody left handed. A couple of people that were mostly ambidextrous, but no one who would have normally used their left hand to pull.”

Clint nods, listening carefully while he runs his hands restlessly over the bow, fingertips tracing everything from the grip to the line of the string. 

“What were they shooting at?” Clint asks.

“Standard round target,” Hardison says. “Nothing person shaped.” He looks at Clint. “Should I run it out for you?”

“Not yet. How far is it to the back wall?”

“Five hundred yards,” Hardison answers. “I might have been a little more optimistic than events merited.”

Clint looks at him. “Give me an arrow,” he says. “Wooden, if you have them, so I don’t damage the range.”

Hardison, looking a little unnerved and puzzled at once, tugs open a cupboard, and then pulls out a quiver. “Just regular arrows,” he says. “Not the specialized ones for the bow.”

Clint slings the quiver easily over his shoulder. “Coulson?” he asks, and Phil walks over and uses the lengths of leather on the vest to secure the quiver. 

“We’re going to have to talk to the Valkyries about how quivers really work,” Clint says with a ghost of a smile. “But this will do, for now.”

Phil takes a step back, and Clint twists behind him to pluck an arrow out of the quiver. For an instant, Phil can see the line of the belt under Clint’s pants, and it strikes him that Clint is still full of come and lube from this morning. He twitches in his slacks, but does his best to ignore it. He doesn’t want to miss this. He suspects what he’s going to see, but he still doesn’t want to miss it.

Clint glances at the ceiling for a moment or two, fits the arrow, and then pulls back, leaning back as though he’s pressing his shoulders against an invisible wall, his back at amazing extension, and then lets it fly. 

The arrow arches through the air, a long, high curve, and when it begins to dip again, Phil is entranced. He knows what Clint had told him, but he’s still entranced. The arrow hits the center of the back wall of the range and shatters.

Phil resists the urge to grab Clint and kiss him until the urge to kiss him passes, which may be approximately never.

“Holy shit,” Hardison says, voice low. Then, excited, “Holy shit, I can’t believe you just did that. That could not have just happened. Do it again.”

This time, Clint moves so quickly that Phil genuinely can’t follow any one motion. It’s like brief snapshots in his head, the quiver, the arrow, the bow, the shot, and the splintering sound of Clint’s arrow against the wall.

Hardison has pulled something that looks like Frankenstein’s video camera out of his lab coat, and orders, “Okay, ten times, top speed.”

Clint’s arm is a blur, the sound of arrows shattering against the wall is all one long sound, weirdly like a very quiet machine gun burst, and then he’s still again.

Clint had told him that he was fast. And Phil had believed him; he’d had no doubt. But there is fast, and there is what Clint just did, which doesn’t seem humanly possible.

Hardison is plugging Franken-camera into a USB port, and one section of the wall resolves itself into a video screen, though it isn’t actually showing what Hardison had just filmed. It’s showing arcs and angles and parabolas as well as a running column of text on one side that is too far into the science for Phil to make out, but from what he can tell, its focus is on speed and trajectory and other conditions that Phil doesn’t have the necessary science to parse.

“If this is right, which, I was standing right here, so I know it is, your maximum target range with that bow is over seven hundred yards. And that’s with subpar arrows, I mean. With the specialized arrows, it could be further. The world record just for shooting far is about five hundred yards, and there’s no aiming involved in that. They were just saying ‘let’s shoot really far.’ I’m talking about what you could shoot at and actually hit.”

“You’re assuming perfect conditions,” Clint says, “and that never happens in the field, but…” He runs his hands over the bow. “It’s still at least two hundred yards further than I could have shot with one of my own bows. I could probably hit the wall with one of mine, but the bunching -- the target zone, I mean -- wouldn’t have been so tight, and it definitely wouldn’t have had the impact force to shatter the arrows. What the hell is this thing made of?”

“Well, it’s complicated, because I wanted to duplicate the size and weight and tension of your bow, but also allow for greater flexibility and durability, so that it will bend much further before breaking, and there’s not a lot of material out there just lying around to do that, so it’s a polyfiber-carbon mix, the carbon for the integrity of the structure, and the polyfiber to make it work and feel as much like your own bow as it could. There was no sense in making you a totally unfamiliar bow; making you learn how to use a whole different kind of bow would have been a waste of the skill you already have, so.”

“So,” Clint says slowly. “It’s basically glass?”

“No, not, well, not glass-glass, I mean, it’s got some glass-like elements, but man, this stuff is stronger than the glass they use in the space shuttle, it’s not going to break on you, ever, I promise.” Hardison sneaks a quick look at Clint, apparently is reassured, and grins a little.

“How strong is it really?” Phil asks.

“Well, if the string didn’t break, you could drive a car over it and still pick it up and use it; it might short out your specialty weaponry, but that’s one of the things I made sure of, that if the electronics went out on it, you could still use it like a regular bow. And, yeah, it’s strong, and the polyfiber is extremely heat and cold resistant, so, car probably yes, but I wouldn’t try putting under the wheels of a moving train,” Hardison says.

Then, as an afterthought, he adds, “That string won’t break under six hundred pounds of pressure, though, so you’re probably good there, too. And there’s a spare in the compartment, just in case.”

“Tell me about the electronics,” Clint says. 

Hardison gives him a level look. “I’ve got it all. It’s done, along with the quiver. But it would make me really happy if you’d just take the bow and use it for a day or so, so that you’re one hundred percent confident in it, before doing things like blowing shit up with it.”

Phil bites back a laugh. He’s known Hardison for a decade; he has no ground to stand on about blowing shit up.

“Let me see the quiver,” Clint says, in tones of compromise.

Hardison frowns a little, but he opens a locked safe with a ridiculous number of keystrokes, and pulls the quiver out. It’s a little different than the one that Clint is wearing. Rounder and it looks a little less like leather and a little more like it might be nearly indestructible. Shafts and fletching stick out the top of it, just like Phil assumes they’re supposed to. 

Hardison holds his hand out for the bow -- which Clint looks like he doesn’t want to give back at all, but eventually does -- and presses a button. The top of the quiver rises up an inch or so, leaving a viewing port near the bottom that Phil is certain is stronger than steel, and Phil can see things that look like arrowheads in different shapes and sizes inside.

“Most of the quiver is loaded with standard broadhead arrows based off of your own design; not wood, like we were using to practice, but weapons-grade aluminum with a carbon-fiber casing,” Hardison says. “So that’s about eighty percent of what you’ve got. The other twenty percent loaded right now are munitions grade explosives, including concussive force. Hand grenades, basically, but cooler.” Hardison’s fingers dance along the buttons on the bow, and Clint and Phil watch as the headless shaft of an arrow lowers itself onto the head of one of the exploding arrow heads, spins itself into place, and then rises up to sit slightly above the rest of the visible plane of fletching. “They will always come up in the same spot,” Hardison says. “If you’re reaching for an explosive arrow, it will always be exactly where it’s been before.” Hardison taps at the bow, and the arrow lowers and disassembles itself, and then the quiver slides back down, looking all of one piece. “There is some other stuff on the table, especially things like sedatives. Some of that is done and some of it needs testing. But I’d really like you to spend time with the bow before you worry about the new arrows.”

Clint runs the flat of his palm along the fletching of the arrows. “It has to be bigger,” he says, almost apologetically. “There are maybe thirty real arrows in there, and I can go through three times that many in a fight. Some of your special equipment might even that out a little, but I never carry less than eighty.” He gestures to a wall rack from which a pair of quivers hang. “Either bigger, or built like that, so that I can couple them together.”

“Clint,” Phil says. “You’re not on your own anymore. You’re not going to have to run with nothing but the arrows on your back.”

Clint nods at this, but he still doesn’t look happy. “I know that, I do. But how many clips would you take on a field mission, Phil? No, don’t tell me, because I already know. As many as you could reasonably carry. This isn’t different than that.” He turns to Hardison. “And it has to be redesigned,” he says seriously. He walks over to the two quivers on the wall rack. “I need straps like this, shoulder to chest to hip.”

“The straps on your armor were designed for…” Hardison begins, and Clint nods. 

“No, I get that. It was well intentioned, if not well thought out. The problem is, I need a second person to put that quiver on my back, and I won’t always have a second person. I have to be able to gear up by myself. I’ll have solo missions, and that’s part of it, but really it’s because if I’m ever going it alone out there, if I get separated, if I don’t make an evac, if anything doesn’t go exactly according to plan, I have to have more ammunition and I have to be able to gear up without help.”

Hardison sighs. “It was meant to hold the quiver in the right position for you to draw from, especially if you’re drawing any of the specials.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Clint says. “I know how to position a quiver, and I can train my fingers to find an arrow that’s sticking out a little further than the rest. Especially if it’s always going to be in the same general area. I don’t like the round design, but I understand it. If you’ve got machinery in there handling my ability to access more firepower, I can learn to live with it. But the other two factors aren’t negotiable. It needs to be bigger, and I have to be able to arm myself without help.”

Hardison nods. “I can make it bigger. I could probably make it something more of an oval shape than round, but it’s the first law of mechanics, man. The simpler the machine, the more likely it is to work. If I change the shape, I’ll have to add more machine. It’s already not exactly a simple device here, Agent Barton.”

“Clint,” Clint interrupts. “This bow is my new security blanket, and you can always, always call me Clint.”

Hardison grins. “The point is.” He pauses. “Hang on,” he says, and goes back to the safe, which he has to open again. He pulls out a second quiver and sits it snugly up against the first. He glances over at what have to be a pair of Clint’s own quivers and considers them. “I can’t make them not round, and if I make it much bigger than this, it’s going to start to get bulky. You’d probably adjust, but still. Things could get caught on it. You couldn’t hide it under a jacket. I mean, not that you can really hide this one, but you could conceal it, maybe with a scarf or something, but anyway, the point is, I can put two together pretty easily, separate machinery in each, but then your special arrows are going to come up in two separate places.”

Clint frowns a little. “Why can’t you put all the special arrows in one quiver and all regular arrows in the other one?” he asks.

Phil somehow doesn’t chuckle.

“Because I did not think of that,” Hardison says with dignity. He frowns at the quivers. “You’ll still have about forty percent of your arrows in the specialized quiver. I can probably go just enough bigger to load you with seventy arrows and thirty specialty arrows. I’ll want to build it and size it on you before I put together the mechanical parts, but you’re a pretty broad guy; I think you can handle pushing it out another inch or so.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Clint says, smiling, but not laughing.

Hardison apparently is aware of the silent laughing anyway, because he says, “Yuck it up, Peter Pan. You may know bows and arrows, but I know science, and this is not as easy as it looks.” Hardison cocks his head. “I’ll get started on the remake, but in the meantime, once you’ve spent a day with the new love of your life, I’ll have the first quiver ready for you. You can use it for practice while I do a redesign.”

Clint pumps his fist in the air. Hardison arches a brow. “I was afraid being a pain in the ass meant no explosive arrows for me for days and days,” he says.

“Naw, man, I wouldn’t taunt you like that. Just get in some range time, and come back tomorrow.” Hardison grins. “I’ve already got the bomb-proof range set up, though I may have to lengthen it now.”

“A heavier arrow won’t fly so far,” Clint says. “How much heavier are they? How long is the bomb proof range?”

“They’re about an ounce and a half heavier,” Hardison says. “The bomb proof range is three hundred and fifty yards.”

Clint thinks about it for a minute. “I think it should be fine. An ounce and a half doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually a pretty solid chunk of weight to shoot from a stick with a string.” Hardison snorts. “And I can stay in range. If it turns out I think I can do better, Coulson mentioned an outdoor range someplace.”

“I want an invite to that party,” Hardison says. “Explosions are more satisfying when they aren’t contained.”

“Fair,” Clint says.


	7. Chapter 7

Coulson’s phone rings while they’re on the way to the range (“Just for twenty minutes,” Clint had lied), and Phil answers, “Coulson,” and then just listens. He catches Clint’s elbow and draws him around a corner, still listening, and Clint has guessed what it’s about by this point, and tries to reconcile himself to what he’s sure is going to be a shitstorm. “We’re on our way,” Coulson says, turning right again, headed toward the elevators.

“We, or you?” Clint asks, because he knows what Coulson doesn’t yet, and this is the kind of thing that requires large scale tactical planning. Clint isn’t sure he has anything to contribute.

“We,” Coulson says. “Maxwell wants you there.”

Clint doesn’t sigh, but he kind of wants to. It’s hard to hold it against Maxwell, and Clint isn’t willing to try to get out of it when Maxwell clearly feels like he needs support. He’s kind of grateful for the weight of his bow and quiver on his back, though. The fact is, Clint never feels armed without them, and he never feels more like he’s in control than when that weight is present. And the sheath that the Valkyries had fitted to the vest works like a dream. Clint can’t even feel it when he pulls the bow off his back, but when it’s stowed, it feels completely stable.

The meeting room this is taking place in has the feel of a war room. There’s a large, triangular table in the center of it, and video screens line the walls. Paper is spread out all across the table, things that were clearly too big to print out in one stretch fitted together loosely.

Maxwell is half huddled in a chair while Hill and Fury talk around him. There are a couple of strangers -- Clint is guessing they’re analysts of some kind -- sorting through stacks of file folders, and while Clint had known Maxwell had been doing all his work off the grid just to keep it secret, he hadn’t really considered that it meant he’d been doing it all by hand, on paper. 

“You’re telling me you don’t have so much as a flash drive?” Hill asks Maxwell sharply, and he just shakes his head no.

“He couldn’t let it be on any kind of device that might be networked to anything,” Clint defends. “Digital secrets are the easiest to steal.”

“The point is,” Fury says, “that it’s going to take a lot of time to put this information together into something that gives us a big picture view.”

“I don’t think it will,” Clint says, and ignores Coulson’s hand low on his back. “We know the big picture. Our submissives are being exported like cattle to someplace called Latveria, presumably to create the bad guy a submissive army. At some point he realized he either had too many submissives to handle, or he just got greedy, because in the last five years or so, they’ve started going elsewhere. Maxwell has the data on when it started, how it escalated, and when and where people were taken to. We’re talking in the neighborhood of anywhere from twenty-five to forty thousand submissives, discounting those with contacts with underground networks that recognized what was happening, and have taken steps to hide their orientation, and those that have expatriated to safer locations. So far only the U.S. has really been hit, though there is some documentation of some smaller scale strikes in Europe. That’s the big picture view. If what you want is a slideshow, that might take you some time, but if you’ll get out of the way and let Maxwell walk you through it from the beginning instead of trying to bludgeon your way through the information with brute force, you’re going to get better information, cleaner timelines, more references -- a clearer ‘Big Picture.’”

“You’re dangerously close to out of line, Barton,” Fury says.

“Forgive me if my concern over the massive losses to our submissive population riles me, Director,” Clint says without apology. “What are you even doing with these papers. You two,” Clint says, pointing to the analysts, “do you even know what you’re going through, or are you just making sure it’s all out of order so that it’s harder to present?” Clint gestures to the fitted together pages on the conference table. “Are these spread out for a reason, or did you just put together the biggest picture you could find? Did you ask Maxwell where you should start at all?”

Clint turns to Maxwell, who looks around him, clearly anxious about pissing anyone off, but manages to say, “I wanted to start with the smaller graphs, with incident Zero, as far as I’ve been able to determine it, but the Director wanted to see all that I know so far, and the big map is the easiest to just look at and pick out the patterns.”

“Okay, so it seems like we need to get the pages for the big map in order so that we can use a computer to get the whole thing without pieces of it falling off onto the floor. And while we do that, we can start where Maxwell, who tried to bring this information to us _five_ years ago, thinks we ought to start,” Clint says.

“Five years ago,” Coulson says flatly, and looks at Fury.

“Everybody had a theory,” Fury says. “We investigated anything that our field agents brought to our attention, but what was brought to us was at the discretion of the agent involved.”

Maxwell is hunched and miserable.

Coulson pulls up the seat next to him, and seems to radiate calm. “Okay, tell me from the beginning,” he says. “Where it started for you personally; we’ll get back to incident Zero, I promise.”

“Get these together in order,” Fury tells the analysts gruffly. “Have them scanned in under my personal security protocols, and then piece it together. Come back when you’ve got a map.”

The analysts begin snatching up papers from the table, cautiously bundling them into order.

“I was in the doctoral program at MIT for fluid systems and dynamics,” Maxwell says. “Usually, that has a lot to do with how ideas spread, but also things like diseases can be tracked, and droughts can be tracked back to their source causes. There are a lot of applications. Anyway, it hadn’t just started, but we had just started to notice that the submissive population was dwindling. We, ah…” He shoots a glance at Fury and Hill, but goes on. “We have our own lines of communication that we try to keep secure. It’s a kind of safety net. A lot of submissives come into it young, and they can make bad choices. The point is, we were in touch, and it wasn’t uncommon to lose contact with people, or only to touch base with them from time to time, but it started to really become noticeable about eight years ago, looking at it entirely from our network.” He starts to stand, and then looks around like he’s waiting for permission.

“It’s okay, Maxwell,” Clint says. “Show us what you’ve got.”

Maxwell walks to the swathe of materials the analysts have laid out, and starts shuffling documents. “These are color coded,” he says, without looking up, though Clint can clearly see his cheeks flushed red. “It’s not as random as it looks. It’s just hard to collate if you don’t know the system. It had to be to keep it secure.” He tugs a green file folder with a blue tab sticking out of it, and brings it over to the conference table. “This isn’t much,” he says seriously, but he’s started to pull his Agent Maxwell persona around himself, and looks a lot steadier. He fans several pages out, and only flinches a little when Fury, Hill, and Coulson crowd in behind him to see. 

“They’re membership lists,” he says. “To the underground. I’ve got the names…” He spreads his hands at the stack of papers. “In case we need them. But the material information is here. He unfolds an oversized piece of graph paper. “The blue line is when I started noticing the decline,” he says. “The red line is where I backtracked to see when it really started. The best I can come up with is about 2003 or 2004. This is predicated on who stopped talking to us, you understand, so it isn’t going to be entirely accurate, but it’s indicative.” He traces the blue line forward to the present. “Each inch represents a thousand people. You see we’ve got a few deep valleys, but it mostly stays stable at a downward trend. We lose about a thousand a year, according to this. But this is a very small snapshot of people. Not all submissives use or even know about the underground. So then I went back and started with hard statistics. Even then, subs were starting to hide what they were. Even without the numbers, we knew something was happening.”

He turns back to the boxes and sorts through things, coming up this time with a red folder with a blue tab. “These are missing person reports for people ages sixteen to twenty-five for 2008.” There are stacks and stacks of photos, but he sets them aside, and just pulls out a similar folded up square of graph paper. “I specifically looked for submissives, but I probably missed a few. Some of the younger ones might not have been openly presenting, and even though it’s a required field, it wasn’t always filled in on police reports I was able to get access to.”

“How often?” Fury asks sharply.

“Fifteen to twenty percent of the time, there was nothing marked in the orientation field.”

Fury makes an unhappy sound.

“Here I went back to 1995; I was pretty sure nothing unusual had gone that far back, and I wanted it for comparison. See, you have this nice, steady red line, a couple of peaks and valleys, but all within norms, statistically. Then in 2003, we start to see a gradual but visible rise. By 2006, the rise is steeper, and has several peaks. By 2008, the line has risen to an average of sixty percent higher than 1995. By last year, it had risen more than a hundred and twenty percent. These are national statistics, which means a database grabs them out of a pool and presents you with enough detail to make a statistical guess for percentage purposes. So these charts don’t give us real numbers. All they give us is proof that we are disappearing. To get the numbers, you’d have to take it to a government level, and I didn’t have the resources to do that. I also wasn’t entirely sure that they’d do anything with the information, but it would still be there, in their systems, where any decent hacker could see that someone was looking.”

Maxwell shuffles the pictures back into the envelope, but leaves the graph out with the other one. For the analysts, Clint assumes.

He runs a shaky hand over his face, and puts the folder back with the others.

“How did you find out where they were going?” Fury asks, not exactly gently, but calmly, at least.

“Shipping manifests, eventually,” Maxwell says. “It was a little more complicated than that, but it’s what I went to school to do. Track things. I tracked where big groups of them had vanished from, and used that information to track down places that were suddenly exporting large shipments from the U.S. in ways that have to be used for live cargo. Once I had a clearer idea of where that was, I managed to use international resources, all public information if you know where to look for it, and keep track of places that were suddenly importing things like live cargo, along with things you need to support a sudden influx of people, mostly food and textiles. Both things pointed to the same place, Latveria. I haven’t had a chance to keep up on tracking some of those things since I’ve been with SHIELD,” he says, face crumpling a little. “My statistics are partially out of date, and I can’t prove anything, it’s all circumstantial.” He’s silent for a long moment. “I’ve spent what free time I have trying to keep track of where new submissives might be taken from and then taken to, but it’s actually a lot of work, being in SHIELD, so I know I’m short data for at least the past several years. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it, because there is no way for a junior agent to secure a meeting with any member of the senior staff without approval from several other layers of junior and senior staff members, which is a gauntlet I’ve attempted to run.” His voice is so tight it sounds like he could cut his own throat with it.

“Why didn’t you tell them you had potential intel on missing submissives?” Hill asks, and her voice is exceptionally gentle.

“I _did_!” Maxwell cries hoarsely, hands shaking as he rakes them through his hair. “I tried my first month here, I tried half a dozen times! If I’d known all I needed was to have a breakdown and get sent to Psych for an eval to get someone to listen to me, I would have done it in the first six months. As it was, the first person to listen to me hasn’t even been with SHIELD for a week, and still managed to get your attention!” 

“Okay, stop a minute,” Clint says, stepping away from Coulson to slide a hand around the back of Maxwell’s neck, steadying him. Maxwell relaxes almost immediately under Clint’s hand, and yeah, he definitely needs a handler and probably a collar; it’s almost ludicrous that Clint is the one doing this for him, and Clint is quietly pissed off no one seems to know or care how fragile Maxwell is right now. “Jason, have you eaten today?” he asks gently.

“No, I. I was too nervous about going to Psych and I’ve been… here.” 

“I’ll bring something…” Coulson starts, and Clint shoots him a pleading look. Coulson frowns faintly, brows arching, but says, “Better yet, you need a break. I’ll take you to the cafeteria and get some food into you; you can tell me about how you manipulated the evaluations for dominance and submission.”

Coulson walks Maxwell out of the room.

Fury says, “I want to know every person he talked to about this, everyone who didn’t let him move up the ladder, including whoever recruited him.” He sounds livid, which Clint approves of, but which isn’t Clint’s problem right now.

Clint turns to Fury and Hill. He keeps his voice low and even. “I understand that this is a crisis situation, but you’ve been in the presence of a submissive in extreme distress for the last several hours, and haven’t done anything about it?” he asks. 

They give him identical blank looks, and Clint sighs.

“He looked for us, you know. When he was sure that he had something real, he started trying to find out who to give the information to, who would do the most with it, who would be effective, and when he found us, and managed to get a meeting with a recruiter, he was told that that kind of information had to be handled by analysts, and that to be an analyst, you had to be a senior agent. He knew enough about SHIELD to understand that agents were mostly dominants, so he went back and edited his whole life so that he could sign on. He tried to tell his trainer in the beginning, and was ignored. Later he approached an actual analyst, who basically laughed at him and told him he didn’t have the training to know what he was talking about, like his degree which is specifically meant for tracking this kind of thing wasn’t a factor, and he shouldn’t waste anyone else’s time. Those are the only ones he specifically told me about, but there were obviously more. But he didn’t stop tracking it, and he didn’t stop trying to put himself personally into a position with enough authority that he could approach at least a senior analyst with what he knew. He suppressed his submissive needs almost completely for four years and projected dominance well enough to fool his trainers and co-workers for all that time. 

“And you find out this morning that he’s a sub, and a sub that has been devoting every second of his free time to solving what I have been told is one of SHIELD’s primary objectives, and instead of finding even a temporary handler for him, someone to settle him, someone to watch out for when he’s losing it, you bring him here and interrogate him for a few hours, trash his filing system, refuse to listen to him when he tries to tell you from the beginning, and I get it, I do.” Clint pauses, aware suddenly that his tone verges on a shout, and that Hill and Fury are looking both a little stunned and a little irritated. He takes a breath, and levels his voice. “You want to do something right now, you want the big picture right now, so that you can blow something up and make it right. I want that, too. I want to hunt down every single missing submissive and do everything in my power to get them home. But even I’m dominant enough to see that he’s unraveling, and if we don’t take very good care of him in the next seventy-two hours or so, he’s going to actually break down, and we _need_ him. But I’m not dominant enough to do that for him, to be that kind of support system, or to deflect you if you both keep at him. If I can see how wounded he is, I can’t imagine that either of you couldn’t know, if you’d looked. I’m not in your collective league, but I can recognize that you need to get somebody in here for him, someone just for him, no job other than keeping him stable, or we’re going to lose him. And I shouldn’t have to have been the one to tell you that.”

Fury opens his mouth -- Clint thinks most likely to tear Clint a new one -- but Hill puts a hand on his arm. He turns to face her. “He’s right. The first thing we should have done was get him a temporary handler and put a collar around his throat,” she says. “Just the collar might have been enough, if we’d done it first thing, so that he knew he was still one of us, still wanted, and we… we _did_ interrogate him, Nick. He couldn’t get to us for help, and he might not have been able to bring himself to tell Psych, just out of fear that they wouldn’t believe him, and that would totally screw up his chances of making his way up the ladder high enough to give the information to someone who could do something with it. He told Barton, trusted Barton, maybe because he just couldn’t shoulder the burden alone anymore, maybe because he knew Barton had access to Coulson. But we... we treated him like an outsider that happened to have information we wanted. He’s a solid agent, especially with what he’s been carrying.” She shrugs a little helplessly. “Barton was right to call us on it. Barton is probably the only person on this base that _would_ call us on it. And Maxwell asked for him specifically, which means that he knows that, too.” She pauses. “Maxwell aside, this should not be the way things work here.”

Fury ducks his head down for a long moment, and then exhales harshly. “Get Sitwell,” he says. “Give him as much of a heads up as you can, but make sure he understands that he’s responsible for Maxwell, not for decoding information for this tactical operation.”

“Yes, sir,” Hill says, her phone already in her hand.

Fury turns to Clint. “If you talk to me like that ever again, I’ll turn you over my knee,” he says seriously.

“Sir,” Clint acknowledges. He had been out of line, and he knows it. He’d had no choice, but he’d taken the step with his eyes wide open.

“Get to the range or something,” Fury snaps. “You don’t need to be here for this.” And then, just a little grudgingly, says, “Sitwell is a good handler; he’ll take care of Maxwell, and I’ll collar him myself until we can match him up with someone.”

“Yes, sir,” Clint says gratefully, though he doesn’t want to leave, especially without Coulson, most especially not without explaining to Maxwell that it hadn’t been his choice. He does, though. Obeying orders, in this case, a punishment for calling the command staff out without the authority to back it up. He understands it and doesn’t even really resent it, but it doesn’t make him feel any less banished.

He leaves, but he stands in the hall for a few seconds. Then he pulls his phone from his belt and dials Coulson.

Coulson doesn’t sigh or even scold him, just listens quietly until Clint is done, and asks, “Do you plan on being at the range?”

Clint thinks about that for a long moment. “Yeah, for a while at least,” he says. “Want to go home, but I’m too worked up. I’ll try to burn off some aggravation first. Should I wait for you?”

“No,” Coulson says, sounding disappointed. “This part of it, Clint, this is a big part of my job. This is firmly within my skill set. We’ll work out the timeline, at least, tonight, and we’ll probably work on places we know they’ve ended up. We’ll look for proof and we’ll go to the U.N. with what we’ve got and ask them to officially sanction any country directly involved in the kidnapping or buying of submissives.”

“That’s like warning them we’re coming,” Clint sighs.

“Not quite,” Phil says. “It takes a while for the U.N. to draft and approve official sanctions. Time enough for us to send in heavy teams with large transport capabilities anywhere we know for sure they are. Once that’s done, some of the other countries will let our subs go to avoid sanctioning. Places that desperately require imports and exports to maintain their economy. Then we’ll have a few more night drops to take back the stubborn ones, but we’ll get it done. Try not to worry; I’ve done this before.”

Clint nods, realizes Coulson can’t see it, and agrees with a grumble. “I don’t like him alone in there with nothing but dominants,” he says. “He already feels like he’s being persecuted, which he _is_ , and that his commanding officers don’t want to hear what he’s trying to tell them, which they _don’t_. They want to go to war, and I understand. Maxwell wants the same thing. But he’s trying to prepare them, and they’re not letting him, Coulson.”

“Sitwell is a friend of mine,” Coulson says soothingly. “He’ll take care of him.”

“He’s still another dominant,” Clint says. “What he needs are some tactical specialists or assets to translate the information he has into the basis of a combat operation.”

“Wasn’t that what you were doing?” Coulson asks, but gently.

“Someone had to make Fury and Hill see what they were doing to him,” Clint says. “You didn’t know the story, or you would have stepped in, I know. There wasn’t anyone else to do it.”

“Go to the range,” Coulson says. “Show off for the other specialists. They’ll enjoy that. Try to keep from thinking too hard about this.”

“Promise me a piece of this action,” Clint says, knowing he can’t reasonably expect Coulson to do any such thing without Fury and Hill’s backing, and Clint is already in their bad graces.

Coulson does, though. “I’ll get you to Latveria,” he says, sounding sure. “The rest of the operations will be smaller, and scattered, but I’ve got a specialist who’s a spy and a sniper, and we’ll have to get at least one person inside to find them. I’ll put everything I’ve got into making sure that’s you.”

A knot loosens in Clint’s chest. He wants to say things to Coulson. He wants to tell him the things he’s never told anyone. But all he can do right now is say, “Thank you.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Coulson says, and hangs up.

Clint hesitates in the hall for several more long seconds, and then heads down to the range.

Agent Kennet is delighted to see him. Apparently Hardison had gone to some trouble to make sure the Quartermaster had a vast supply of arrows laid in for Clint, and Kennet has more or less been waiting for Clint to show up for a demonstration since they’d been delivered.

Clint draws the bow from across his back and jerks it to full extension. Kennet and several other agents form a loose circle around Clint, eyes mostly curious on the bow, interested, though he sees a few people who look dismissive. 

Clint glances up at the ceiling, sees he has no problems there, and says, “Does anyone here actually shoot?”

A couple of agents say that they do, but freely admit that it isn’t their best skill. One of them bow hunts; the other had been a competition level archer in college. “You can take turns calling out ranges and targets,” Clint tells them.

The bow hunter starts at sixty yards, which is nothing for Clint, but is a reasonable assumption for a hunter to make. The sound of an arrow travels twelve seconds faster than an arrow takes to reach a target, so a hunter would be thinking in terms of how to conceal that sound from an animal. One of the other agents punches in the target distance, and Clint nods.

“What kind of a shot do you want?” he asks.

“Throat shot,” the hunter says. “Most effective way to kill large game.”

Clint snaps an arrow into place and fires. The arrow rips through the throat area and the force almost rips the target itself in half.

“Shit!” someone says.

“Is it just a recurve bow?” someone else asks. “I mean, it looks like it’s got some tech of some kind in it, but no pulleys or anything.”

“It’s a recurve,” Clint says. “The tech is so that I can fire specialty arrows from it, once R&D has them ready for me. Range?” he asks the collegiate sportsman.

“My best shot on my best day was a blue ring at a hundred and eighty yards,” he says. “Go for the body shot, though. I want to see how big a hole it really makes.”

The target is adjusted, and Clint makes the shot, not trying to hide his speed or skill from anyone. The arrow takes out more than three quarters of the chest of the target.

There are several long seconds of silence.

Agent Kennet asks, “What can you _really do?_ ,” he asks.

“In perfect conditions like this,” Clint says. “Probably about seven hundred yards.”

Most of the agents don’t look like they grasp how far that really is with a bow, but both the hunter and the athlete look like they don’t believe it. Hell, Kennet looks like he doesn’t believe it, but he gestures, and a new target is set up.

Clint gauges the distance carefully; he’s doing this without a sight -- he will make his own, once he’s used to the way the bow shoots -- and leans back for the right degree of curvature. He takes a second to check his aim, which he almost never does, but this is actually his first shot with this bow at this distance. “Head shot,” Clint says, and fires. The arrow slices through the black outline of the head of the target cleanly, leaving a fist-sized hole in the head. “It’s never going to be an easy distance,” Clint says. “And the arrow slowed enough in flight to just punch a hole in the target, not rip it apart. But that’s probably close to the maximum distance I can get with it. Less in the field, and depending on conditions. Four or five hundred yards reliably.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” the college athlete says. “How much of it is the bow, really?”

“It’s based on my design,” Clint says. “One of my own bows that SHIELD recovered at an op. I know that bows maximum capacity was five hundred or so, not seven, and in the field it was three or three-fifty. So some of it’s the bow. It’s stronger, has a better pull on it. It’s completely machine crafted, so it’s bound to have more precise components than I could make by hand.” Clint shrugs. “The arrows are above what I could make, too, so that’s part of it.”

“Yeah, but. Man, I heard about your sniper practice.” The kid talking looks a little embarrassed. “We all did, and once your skill level was declassified, there was video. Most of us thought it was faked.” He looks apologetic. “But there’s no way to fake something like this. How far can you really be to take out a target with the Cheytac?”

“In ideal conditions?” Clint asks. The kid and a few other agents nod. The crowd has expanded. “I wouldn’t want to try more than two, two and a half miles,” he says, and is pretty confident in that number. “I’ve done better in worse conditions, but those kinds of shots are sometimes as much luck as skill.”

“You…” says a tall, muscular guy about five years younger than Clint. “Are you exaggerating that kind of shot?”

“No,” Clint says simply. Slightly behind him, Kennet is shaking his head.

“The film with the SIG 50 is still classified,” he tells the huddle of people.  
“But I saw the shot. I don’t think he’s exaggerating.”

“But how?” one kid asks; he looks like he should still be in high school. “The machine isn’t designed for that kind of distance.”

“The specs on a machine aren’t based on what the best person in the best conditions can manage,” Clint says. “They’re the mean. They’re the mean created by the best shooters in the world, but it still boils down to the average of what they can do as a group. So even though the Cheytac isn’t rated for it, it has the capacity to handle a lot more distance than the mean suggests. And if you put your best man behind it, it can outperform its specifications significantly.”

“And that’s you?” the kid asks. He doesn’t look like he doubts it; he looks like he just wants to know.

“There’s got to be some others out there,” Clint says. “Either working for other agencies or freelance. But as far as I know, for SHIELD, I’m the best man to put behind any ranged weapon you’ve got.” Clint cocks his head a little. “Except maybe a regular sidearm. I can snipe with one if I have to, but I’ve put most of my time and energy into long range weapons. There might be someone here better with a handgun than I am.”

“What about moving targets?” the tall guy asks.

“Clint Barton,” Clint says, giving him a considering look. “Barton is fine. Let me know what to call you when you talk to me. I’ve got to learn who’s who somehow.”

“Lyle Zypher,” the tall guy says. Clint nods in lieu of a handshake.

“I’m not sure what the capacity of the range is,” Clint says honestly. “We’d need a big enough space and targets at random intervals.”

“The specialists’ range,” the kid says, then adds, “Adam Willis. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Clint says. “Do you guys have the clearance for the specialists’ range?”

“Only if we’re escorted in by a specialist,” the college athlete says. “Mark Dupree.”

“That’s lucky for all of us then,” Clint says. “Since I happen to be a specialist, but I don’t happen to know where the specialists’ range is located.”

“Damnit,” Kennet grumbles. Clint arches his brows. “I’m on shift,” he says. “I can’t leave the cage.”

“Don’t you have a second?” Clint asks.

Kennet waffles for a few seconds, and then grins and produces a phone. “I haven’t asked him to work a single extra hour in at least five years,” he says. “Might as well… Duke. I need you on the range. No, everything’s fine, I just have to be off site for a while. Quick as you can.”

While they wait for the Quartermaster’s relief, someone draws Clint a crude map of the training area, including what’s open to everyone, what’s restricted to assets and specialists, and what’s limited to specialists only.

“Why?” Clint asks. “If nothing else, there’s a lot you guys could learn from the specialists.”

“Most of the regular training facilities are for everyone,” Kennet says. “But some specialists have specific needs. We’ve got explosives experts, and they need space and quiet to work. We’ve got martial artists so advanced that even if they intended no harm, they could easily accidentally injure someone badly. The assets are a little different. In-between, except for a few that could be specialists, but don’t want to. And it’s not just combat or training. People need to be around other people like them, so they don’t feel like bugs under glass.” He gives Clint a long look. “And most of the agents are dominants, while most of the assets and specialists are submissives. For the most part, that isn’t a problem here, but every now and then, we end up with someone who thinks he has the right. Mostly the assets and specialists outclass that someone so badly it’s kind of hilarious, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have places to go where they don’t have to worry about it. You just haven’t been here long enough to be invited.”

Clint nods thoughtfully.

“Besides,” Zypher says, “there are other things SHIELD needs than people who can wreak vast amounts of havoc.” He’s smiling as he says it though. “We’re all agents. Everyone is combat trained; it’s a job requirement. But that’s not what most of us will be doing. We have specialized and highly qualified security for ground troops. Regular agents do other things. Track down strange things, gather information, handle disinformation, take control of potentially damaging situations. A lot of containment. No offense, Specialist Barton, but I’d guess sending you into a potentially devolving situation would only reclassify it as a definitively devolving situation.”

Clint thinks about being tossed out on his ear by Fury, and can’t disagree.

“Point,” he says. “What I do isn’t containment until the only kind of containment possible is the lethal kind.”

There is an uneasy rustle in the little crowd Clint has drawn, but no one argues.

Duke arrives, and is cranky about having to watch the cage while everyone else gets to go watch Clint test his bow. He becomes especially irritated when he gets a look at the targets Clint has already destroyed.

“Next time,” Kennet promises, and leaves him grumbling behind the counter.

The way to the asset and specialist areas is a narrow little maze that branches off the far end of the range.

“You can get there from the training area, too,” Kennet tells him. “But it’s like this. If you don’t know the way, you’ll end up wandering for awhile.”

Clint keeps careful track of where they’re heading, noting doors, some blank and some marked, and eventually they end up at a set of opaqued glass double doors with ADVANCED SPECIALIST RANGE etched on them. There’s a security panel, which Clint considers for a moment, and then tugs his collar out to hold under the scanner. The doors click, and he opens them -- he’s aware of the agents looking at his collar, but it doesn’t bother him the way he thinks it should -- holding them open for the crowd of about twenty-five agents and Kennet that he’s managed to pick up.

“What the hell?” someone asks, and Clint turns to face a young latino man holding a .50 calibre handgun in each hand. He’s not pointing them at anyone, which is the only thing that keeps Clint from the knee-jerk response of nocking an arrow and he still kind of itches to do it anyway.

“Clint Barton,” Clint says, and sees recognition of his name, at least, flash across the man’s face. “And guests.”

“Lorenzo Capiro,” the specialist says, looking doubtfully at Clint’s ‘guests.’ “You didn’t kidnap them or anything, did you?” he asks.

Kennet chuckles.

“I was testing my bow,” Clint says. “The consensus was that there was a better range here.”

Capiro’s face creases into a grin. “The consensus is right,” he says. He throws another dubious look at the little crowd, but rolls one shoulder in an easy going shrug, and says, “So what are you looking for? We’ve got a couple of ranges back here. If it’s just distance, you’re better off on the regular range.”

“I was thinking more of moving or concealed targets,” Clint says, and finally relaxes a little when Capiro holsters his giant handguns. 

“We can do that,” Capiro says. “What’s the range on your bow?”

“For this exercise, we’re going to call it five hundred yards,” Clint says.

Capiro pauses -- all the agents behind Clint stop on a dime, and Clint is impressed in spite of himself -- and gives Clint a blatantly disbelieving look. “You don’t even have a sight mounted on that thing,” he says. “It’s not even a compound bow. There’s no way you’re pulling that kind of range.”

“I am,” Clint says simply, feeling no real need to defend himself. His coterie of agents, though, are agreeing with him, and quickly pass on the story of the seven hundred yard shot. Clint just looks at Capiro, waiting.

“All right, but you should know that if you fail your ass off, I’m going to laugh at you for the rest of my life,” Capiro says.

“Depending on my nerves, that might not be very long,” Clint says with a smirk. “I’ll risk it.”

Capiro smirks back at him, but leads him through a narrow, round topped passage that opens into what Clint is guessing is a repurposed sewage processing station that the city isn’t using anymore. It smells a little dank, and the lighting is uneven, brighter in some places, dim in others, a couple of entirely dark patches. There’s foliage that almost has to be transplanted, most of it no taller than twice Clint’s height, though with the height of the tunnel, they could easily import some taller trees. Of course, it must be hard to smuggle trees through the city. There’s also a variety of obstacles, low walls that come up to Clint’s shins, patches of gravel, at least two rope traps that Clint will have to take out before he does anything else. There’s a breeze coming from somewhere, but it’s artificial, and Clint is already compensating angles and trajectories in his head. He glances up and can see, in the far distance, slim pipes with sprinkler heads mounted on them, almost certainly to simulate rainfall conditions. He wonders if they have several settings, and then wonders about the manufactured breeze. It would be easy to make this a very inhospitable training course.

On one wall he can see a wide window that overlooks the course; Capiro catches him looking at it, and says, “Yeah, we’ll have to take your fanclub to the viewing room. This place gets dangerous when in motion, especially if you’re standing still.” He grins, not exactly maliciously, but with a kind of gleeful anticipation. “So what you’re looking at here is shoot whatever you see moving and avoid obstacles while you do it. The point is to get from this doorway to the other one, which is directly across from it. These things are designed to be dangerous,” Capiro says, looking a little more serious. “I’m telling you that because some of it doesn’t look dangerous.”

“What’s the distance?” Clint asks.

“From door to door?” Capiro asks. “About a mile and a half. The room itself isn’t evenly shaped though, so you could end up covering a lot more distance.”

Clint nods, fingers twitching. “I’m guessing it’s all randomly generated? Pre-programmed scenarios?”

“Got it in one,” Capiro says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a square plastic container with something red inside. “If you need to stop the program, that’s technically a box with a button in it. Unofficially, we usually just crush them, because they’re a bitch to get open.”

Clint pockets the button.

“And look, it can get nasty in there. Almost nobody gets through their first time.” Capiro looks like he’s trying to warn Clint and comfort him at the same time.

Clint grins. “Sounds like fun,” he says with total honesty.

“I’ll take your friends up to the window,” Capiro says, looking sadly at Clint, like he’s a little crazy. “I’ll program the range of your weapon in from there. The ambient light in here will change to something greenish briefly, to let you know the scenario is started, and then there’s no telling how much light you’ll get.” He claps Clint on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

Clint nocks an arrow and waits for the light to turn green.

It takes about two minutes, and Clint just lets his first two shots fly through the door, severing the ropes slung low between foliage and reminding himself not to step in either of those spots, already feeling a prickle of exhilaration at pitting himself against something like this, especially something specifically designed for someone of his unique level of skill. He’s aware that muscling his way straight through to the other door is likely to deliberately be the hardest of all possible options, but he’s had a frustrating day, and he’s still harboring some anger, maybe a lot of anger, and it’s not like he’s well known for being the cautious one.

Both the prickling of exhilaration and the anger pass quickly, though, just like almost all strong emotion does when Clint is preparing to do what he does best. Strong emotion is for afterward. During, it’s all about skill and attention, and skill and attention are only diluted by strong emotion.

He puts emotion aside, feeling himself gearing up toward hypervigilance, and welcoming the feeling.

He’s maybe twenty steps in when he hears a screech echoing from somewhere above him; he can’t see it, but he goes to one knee, bow pulled, and catches a reflective gleam from something that’s swooping lower, about eighty yards away. Clint puts an arrow through it, and it falls out of the sky, but several more angry screeches echo through the cavernous room -- Clint counts at least four, depending on echos -- and nocks three arrows and waits for that tell-tale gleam. Several things fall to the ground, but Clint doesn’t wait for the fourth whatever it is to give away its location; he wants a better look at what he’s shooting at. The screeching noises the things make sound both animal and mechanical, and make the short hairs at the nape of his neck bristle. He pulls a knife from his boot, eyes tracking the glint of its movement, and then slashes it out of the air a few feet from his face. He examines what’s left of it -- he’d cut it nearly in half -- and it looks like a mechanical cross between a small pterodactyl and one of those flying roaches. He considers it with some small amount of surprise mixed in with a larger spike of interest. His curiosity is piqued. He shoves his knife back into his boot, and puts himself back on course. He’d recover his arrows -- he doesn’t know how many he’s going to need -- but the rest of the ptero-roaches had gone down some distance away, and he doesn’t want to deviate.

He hasn’t gone another ten yards when something charges out of the brush to his left, and Clint sinks an arrow into its head. He doesn’t take the time to look, he can hear more of them coming, and he just nocks arrows two at a time until he can see their low, shadowy shapes, and takes them out. The things he’d shot look like a cross between badgers and hedgehogs, and he wonders briefly who had designed these monstrous little critters, which are not exactly pretty, but don’t really look all that dangerous until Clint looks closely, and sees that the spines on their backs are covered in some kind of black, unhealthy looking ichor. He does recover his arrows this time, examining the ichor on the shafts of them and deciding that it’s not going to impede him reusing them.

For a minute or so, Clint slips forward in darkness, not running, but moving at a swift lope; he almost doesn’t see the patch of gravel ahead of him to stop himself in time, and even then, apparently his footfalls had been enough to rouse whatever denned there. There is some rumbling Clint can feel in the soles of his boots, and then a giant worm-like creature bursts out of the gravel. It’s twice as tall as Clint, and has no eyes as far as he can see, but its open maw is lined with row upon row of metal teeth.

“Excellent,” Clint mutters. “I’m on Dune.”

Clint, operating under the theory that even if its “brain” isn’t located in its head, something mechanical has to be driving the teeth, rolls quickly to the left, and puts an arrow through what looks like it would be the hinge of its jaw. It doesn’t die, but there’s a hellacious screech when it tries to close its mouth, and Clint puts an arrow through its head. He recovers the second arrow, but not the first, which is mangled by the creature’s teeth.

Clint manages another hundred yards or so, having to circle around a small body of water, before he hears a low, ominous buzzing coming from somewhere in the dense foliage. He waits, bow pulled to extension, until he can see what looks like swarm of what could probably be termed a mixture of wasps and hummingbirds, brightly colored wings zinging through the air. There have to be thirty of them, and not even Clint is that fast but he’s picking them off anyway, watching and ready to take defensive maneuvers, but thinking about a documentary he’d once seen about things with hive minds, specifically _mechanical_ hive minds, his eyes scanning restlessly. He sees the bigger hummingwasp in the middle of the swarm, and shoots at it twice, even as the first little wave gets to him, and use their sharp little beaks to sting his left arm. Only three or four get in hits; when the big one goes down, the rest of them go down with it. 

The bites sting, though, and go a little numb. Clint jerks out a knife and slices each round blister open, watching whatever poison they’d injected run down his arm, along with a liberal amount of his own blood. They’re shallow cuts, though, and he’s still in fighting shape, and frankly, standing still around here seems like a good way to get hurt, so he lurches in the right direction again, passing the little pool, and the tentacle that wraps around his left boot and lifts him up takes him completely by surprise.

Clint arches automatically to keep his quiver from emptying itself onto the ground. The armor is a godsend. It’s snug and flexible, and there is no flapping cloth or straps or anything dangling in his way. He’s able to get his bow around, even upside down, and it’s mostly a guess, but if what’s in the pool is shaped even remotely like the pool, the head will be in the middle. Clint takes two shots, though the first one makes the tentacle drop him; he jackknifes his body in the air to land on his feet and takes another shot, just to be careful.

There’s a low hum of electricity in the air and blue sparks dancing over the surface of the pool. Clint turns away and is almost face to face with something that looks like a monkey-koala if either of those had gleaming silver piranha teeth. He jerks back in time to keep it from catching hold of him, but doesn’t have an arrow nocked, so does the first thing he can think of. He catches it by its ears and flips it over a shoulder into the pool. It makes a “zzzzzt” sound as it shorts out, and Clint nocks an arrow, because he doesn’t want to do that again. He can hear crashing through the foliage which he’s willing to bet are friends of the monkey-koala; the leaves and tall ferns are in a frenzy, which means they’re probably traveling by some kind of brachiation. Clint loosens his bow and draws his gun, and in the end he thinks he could have probably taken them all out by bow -- they’re not all that fast -- but the gun had been much faster.

Something huge roars some distance to Clint’s right, and Clint gets himself pointed in the right direction again and keeps up that steady lope, leaping over ankle high walls and big rocks hiding in shadows, twice avoiding patches of gravel, while listening for something to come crashing through the trees; he wouldn’t be surprised to see a T-rex. 

But the sound fades, and Clint is briefly in a patch of light that throws a shadow onto the ground besides his own. He spins, his bow ready, and sliding down length of thick cord that probably isn’t silk, is a fat, spindly-legged spider-creature -- it looks almost entirely like a spider, except its eight legs end in tiny hands and its eyes are freakishly, disturbingly human-looking -- with acid green markings. Clint ducks without thought, and the acid the spider-thing spits only clears his head by about six inches. Clint shoots it from his knees, but it doesn’t immediately die, in spite of the fact that Clint had taken half its face off. It spits at him again, and Clint rolls, coming up with his knife in his left hand. He whips it through the cord the thing is hanging from, and then kicks it over onto its back. Its legs pedal the air uselessly, tiny hands grasping, and Clint leans in and jabs the tip of his knife precisely into each surviving eye. It twitches a little more, but Clint is pretty sure it’s dead. He wipes ichor off his blade by plunging it into the dirt, and shoves his knife back into his boot. He’s got his bow up again in an instant, but things have gone deadly quiet. 

Clint takes advantage of it, moving along at an almost jog, zig zagging around a half dozen rope traps (he doesn’t shoot them; he’s conserving his arrows), and nearly doesn’t see the snake with the falcon head until it whips forward to strike at him. Clint skips two paces backward and one to the side, and separates the head from the body. The body thrashes on the ground, but seems otherwise harmless. The head is just a lifeless lump. Clint retrieves his arrow and nocks it again.

That vast, rumbling roar sounds again, markedly closer this time, and Clint can’t really guess what hybrid creature it’s coming from, but it sounds uncomfortably like a bear to him.

He moves, still quick but a lot more cautious. The snakes with the falcon heads look like hanging vines, and Clint takes out six more of them over the course of about eighty feet.

He hears the monkey-koalas coming -- they are totally silent, but the foliage they’re moving through is not. He tries to get an idea of how many of them, but it could be three or thirty from the sound. He nocks three arrows, waiting, and takes out the first three without incident. Two more immediately spring out in their wake, however, and Clint drops to one knee and uses the bow like a baseball bat, swinging a hundred and eighty degrees to get them both. One of them is disabled -- Clint must have broken its mechanical spine -- but the other just bounces twice and digs its claws into the dirt to charge Clint. Clint puts an arrow between its monstrous mechanical jaws, and then chides himself for it, as the thing bites down during its death throes and mangles the arrow beyond use.

He’s guessing he’s got about thirty arrows left, after those he’d used to show off at the regular range, and he should clearly have had Kennet refill his quiver before he’d decided to come play at the big boy playground. He thinks he’s about three quarters of the way to the opposite door, and he takes off again, hoping that whatever that roaring had been, it had not been a bear, since he’s leaving a bloodtrail from the humming-wasps.

He gets an unprecedented four hundred feet without anything attacking him, and when it happens, Clint almost feels guilty. There’s an angry chittering from a branch to his left and Clint spins and lets loose without thought. His arrow pierces what appears to be a striped squirrel. It falls to the ground and Clint goes to retrieve the arrow -- damn, the little thing had almost been cute -- when another one drops onto his back and tries to latch its teeth into Clint’s skin. It’s only got a mouthful of vest at the moment, but an inch higher and it would have gotten the back of his neck. Clint spends point five seconds considering the ramifications -- thickness of saber-toothed squirrel, thickness of vest, how likely it is to have friends -- and then merely flips the arrow in his hand and plunges it between his own shoulder blades, trusting the Valkyries. The squirrel screeches as Clint jerks the arrow out, spitted pretty cleanly on the shaft, but not dead. Clint jabs the arrow into the ground and steps on its head until it crunches. Then he pulls the arrow back and nocks it again.

A hundred yards further, he becomes aware that he’s being silently stalked by something that moves low to the ground. It’s off to Clint’s left, and Clint can only see glimpses of it in the low light and foliage. It looks a little like a wolf, but Clint is betting it’s not, or not entirely. Up ahead is a clearing, or at least a place where the foliage isn’t so dense, and Clint decides to take a stand there. When he steps into it and whirls, the wolf-thing is already leaping at him, except not in a way any wolf Clint has ever heard of would leap. It bounds off the ground with its sturdy front legs, and then extends its hind legs -- feet flat and wide -- and arches its body, slamming Clint right in the chest, though he manages to fall to one side, to save his quiver. He rolls quickly away and lurches to his feet, and takes the… the wolf-aroo? right in the throat. It goes down far more easily than Clint likes, and in ten seconds or so, he realizes why. What Clint assumes is its mate springs out of the underbrush, bigger and fangy-er, and Clint manages a rolling dodge, snapping in the arms of the bow in to keep them from tangling in the underbrush, snapping them out as soon as he’s on his feet again -- and he can already imagine the possibilities -- and the wolf-aroo is already leaping again. Clint takes it in the belly, knocking it aside, though it’s not actually down, and then manages to leap over it as it starts its next charge, and sink an arrow into its scruff.

He pauses, just to make sure it’s down, and hears a little rustling from near the corpse of the first wolf-aroo, along with some mewling kinds of sounds. Because he’s just the kind of guy that’s got to know, he edges his way back in that direction, and just sort of stares, a little horrified, a little fascinated.

Squirming out from under the body, presumably from a marsupial type pouch, are a dozen almost-hairless screeching tiny wolf-aroos, their gaping jaws overlarge for their uncoordinated bodies. One leaps at him, and Clint kicks it out of the air, hearing its brittle body snap in several places, and man, Clint is not squeamish, but something seems really wrong about killing the little creatures. He’s stepping backward, maybe deciding to just leave them and run on, when one of them gets its feet up under it and springs with deceptive agility. 

Clint doesn’t even have an arrow nocked. He uses the bow like a golf club, feels the little body break on impact, and winces. There are at least ten more of them, though, and several of them are managing to get their feet up under them.

Clint sighs and pulls his gun, leaving the rest of them red and brown smears on the clearing floor. He slides another clip into the gun and holsters it, nocks an arrow this time, turns, and is pretty sure he is abruptly face to face with what Clint had been hoping was not a bear.

It’s not a bear.

It’s a Gila Monster, a huge, poisonous lizard, except not, of course; it’s crossed with something like a rooster, though its skin is all metallic scales and its eyes are a blank silver sheen, and it’s easily twice Clint’s height, even rocked forward as it is to glare at him. It roars at him, and Clint sees, literally watches, venom drip from its teeth.

The fact is, big lizards are commonly considered slow. Clint, who has witnessed both alligators and crocodiles in action, doesn’t believe that shit for a second.

He holds the bow parallel to the ground, losing the arrow in the process, and does three quick back flips with his right hand, putting some distance between himself and the Gila Rooster from hell. It’s already after him, jaws gaping, by the time Clint nocks three arrows, which is as many as he’s confident of his ability to aim with. He launches them at the big lizard; two of them spang off its scaled skin, actually striking up sparks. The third digs its way into the meat of its right foot -- it only has two -- which Clint can only hope will slow it down. Clint manages another ten yards of hasty retreat, arrows ready, and the Gila Rooster puts its head down on its abnormally long neck and charges. Clint sees that the comb on top of it’s head is razor sharp metal, and Clint had been right. It’s _fast_.

But the arrow to the foot actually has slowed it some, its gait uneven, and the body is really too big for the slender legs of the rooster part of it to carry it at a full charge for any real distance. Clint aims for the ankles, three arrows at a time, running backward as he does, aware that it’s highly possible that he’ll run into something else that wants to kill him, since he certainly doesn’t have time to look back.

He manages to sever the left foot entirely when he reaches back and discovers he’s down to two arrows. The Gila Rooster is dragging itself toward Clint, much more slowly now, thank God, but still looking murderous. Clint takes both arrows out, puts one between his teeth and nocks the other one, then falls down onto his ass, slouched back as far as he can go without interfering with firing the bow, and waits. The Gila Rooster drags itself closer to Clint, and lets out that ungodly roar again, and Clint fires into its open mouth, angled up as much as he can, trying to put one through the brainpan. He nocks the last arrow -- the Gila Rooster is thrashing, but still roaring -- and waits for his last shot. 

He gets it when the Gila Rooster snaps the shaft of the arrow Clint put through the roof of its mouth in half. It roars again, gurgling now, but not down, and turns its head to gaze at him in animatronic rage. Clint decides these things are way too creepy, someone needs some serious therapy, and puts the last arrow through the shiny silver of its right eye.

It takes it forever to die, and Clint has no intention of moving until he’s sure it’s dead, though he’s holding his gun in his left hand now, the grip slick with his own blood.

Eventually it wheezes into stillness, and Clint gets to his feet cautiously. There is a conspicuous absence of noise or killer mutant machine monsters, and even though he’s sure the Gila Rooster is dead, he makes a wide circle around its corpse. 

The door isn’t two hundred feet beyond it, and Clint makes an executive decision to run before anything worse can come after him.

Just inside the passageway, there’s a big green button. It’s unmarked, but hey, green is go, right? 

Clint presses it. A chunk of wall hisses backward, leading to a strangely sterile and slightly curving flight of stairs leading up. Clint goes up.

Eventually, it leads to what must be the observation room, because this is where all the people Clint had brought with him are waiting, plus some people he’s never seen before.

And Spencer.

“Hardison’s going to be pissed,” Spencer notes, mostly without inflection.

“You took out practically everything,” Capiro says, sounding a little dazed with what Clint has to guess is surprise; he can’t tell from the look on Capiro’s face. “You missed the lion-sharks; they hang out on the east side.”

Clint tries to picture a lion-shark and fails.

“The pygmy yetis,” a woman in blond pigtails says thoughtfully, a slow grin spreading across her face.

“Brandon is going to go through the roof,” Capiro says, abruptly sounding gleeful. “You beat his time by eighteen minutes.”

“And the Gila Rooster,” says the woman with shorn hair that Clint had met earlier, Avery, he thinks her name is. “Nobody has done that.”

“Fuck, no one even _engages_ it,” Capiro says.

“Did you see the mix-and-match weapon style?” asks another guy that Spencer had introduced him to, earlier; Clint is pretty sure his name is Gillette, who has spiky red hair and a spattering of freckles across his face and arms. “Has anyone ever even gone in with anything but their primary weapons?” he asks.

“No one said we could,” Avery says.

“No one ever said we couldn’t,” Capiro says thoughtfully.

Clint’s little group of Agents aren’t saying anything.

“You guys okay?” Clint asks. He realizes that he’s covered in blood and dirt and leaves, and probably looks pretty bad, but he’s actually all right, even grinning a little, which may be part of the reason they’re all looking at him like they are. He realizes he’s still holding his gun, and holsters it, but that doesn’t seem to reassure them.

“Honestly,” Agent Kennet says, “I think we were all pretty sure you were going to die down there.” He sounds serious; Clint blinks in surprise.

“It’s dangerous,” Capiro doesn’t try to deny. “But nothing is likely to be really fatal at our skill level. The poisons are only moderately debilitating, and drowning is a possibility with the squid-pool, but the only thing that might have been able to kill him is… was the Gila Rooster.”

“It didn’t occur to you to tell him there was a chance of death before he went in?” Kennet snaps.

Capiro thinks about it for a few seconds. “No, not really. I assumed he knew, and again, the only really dangerous thing, everyone knows to avoid.”

“Hardison is going to be so fucking pissed about that fucking thing,” Spencer says, but now he’s grinning a little, too; all the specialists are grinning a little.

“Hardison needs therapy,” Clint says. “What kind of fucked up combinations were those things?”

“It’s to see if you hesitate,” Avery says, as though it’s perfectly reasonable to hybridize mechanical animals into things out of nightmares. “Especially new specialists. We can’t afford to hesitate.”

“I loved it when you stabbed yourself in your own back,” Capiro says cheerfully. “Those little squirrel things are like snapping turtles; once they latch on, they never let go.”

“You said there was another range?” Clint asks.

“Yeah, kind of seek and destroy. The point is to not get shot while taking out moving targets that are trying to shoot you. It’s harder than it sounds. They have a limited AI, can dodge and hide, and they learn from what you’re doing so they can anticipate you,” Capiro says.

“And the laser tag floor,” Gillette says. “But you won’t use that until Hardison can build you a bow that works exactly like your own, except fires narrow lasers. Then we all go in at once and try to pick each other off.”

“Actual lasers,” Avery says. “There are sensors you aim for, but even if you get hit somewhere else, it hurts like a bitch.”

“This is me, being glad I’m not a specialist,” one of the agents says. Several others murmur in agreement.

“You should at least consider laser tag,” Capiro says. “I’ve always thought that one should be available to the agents.” He shrugs. “Ours is a free for all, but they could set it up in teams, have you guys practice working together, set some kind of goal.”

Some of the agents look interested in that possibility.

“It was a bitch,” Clint says. “But kind of in a fun way. I’ve been pretty pissed all day. This helped.”

The agents look dubious, but most of the specialists look like they get exactly what he means. Clint feels a cautious sense of belonging that he doesn’t let himself inspect too closely.

“So, here,” Capiro says, and hands Clint at least six little dime sized tags for his collar. “One is to let you access all the areas up here. One is because you beat the hell out of that range the first time out. One is because you’re now the guy with the time record. One is for the Gila Rooster.” That one is bright red, Clint sees. “One is for killing all the baby wolf-aroos. Most of us can’t bring ourselves to do it. And one is one we just made, because of your multi-weapon style. And I personally apologize for doubting your word on your bow’s range. I’ve never seen anyone use a bow like that.”

Clint grins a little and slides the discs into his pocket. “The bow is what I know best,” he says. “The other weapons -- well, there’s no point to having them if you’re not going to be able to tell when to use them.”

“Still. If your handler is agreeable, we’d enjoy throwing you a party for the Gila Rooster. We can all get smashed and tell you horror stories.”

“The falcon-snakes are poisonous, too,” Avery says. “And the pterodactyl-roaches, not that they ever got near you.”

“Smart of you to cut the poison out with the humming-wasps,” Spencer says. “They weaken muscle control, and since you pull with your left arm...”

Clint nods. “I figured better safe than sorry.”

Clint’s phone rings. The caller ID says it’s Coulson. “This is Barton,” Clint answers, unsure whether Coulson calling is a good thing or a bad thing.

“Can you get back to the conference room?” Coulson asks.

“Sure, let me just get cleaned up…” Clint starts.

“Come as you are,” Coulson says. “Maxwell is asking for an advocate.”

“I don’t know what that means, Coulson,” Clint says as patiently as he can.

“Any submissive can ask for another submissive or switch to be present at any time as an advocate if he or she feels that their submissive status is being used against him or her,” Coulson says.

“I thought Sitwell…” Clint begins.

“He feels like we’re treating him like he’s lesser because he’s a sub, Clint. Another dominant, even one assigned to do nothing but make sure he’s okay, is not necessarily going to help that.” Coulson lets out a tiny sigh. “He may even be right,” he says so quietly that Clint only barely catches it. “Can you get here as soon as you can?”

“I’ll be there in ten,” Clint says, and hangs up. “I’ve got to go be an advocate,” he tells the whole room. The specialists look up sharply, though the agents just look mildly interested. “Kennet, can you haul ass ahead of me and fill my quiver, so I don’t have to stop?”

Kennet doesn’t even ask why. He takes Clint’s quiver and is out the door with it an instant later.

“Anything you can tell us?” Capiro asks.

Clint shakes his head. “Not yet, but they won’t keep it a secret long. Thanks for the brush with death,” he says wryly.

“Your access is total,” Avery says. “Sometimes we need time, and mostly our handlers understand that.” The look she gives him is both questioning and intent, as though she wants to make sure he understands.

Clint nods. “I appreciate it. Come on, agents.”

Clint finds his way back through the maze with no trouble. He’s curious about the asset areas, but not curious enough not to be more worried about Maxwell. He can’t imagine Fury being happy to see him again, but he’s just killed a Gila Rooster, and can’t bring himself to be too worried about Fury, either.

Kennet is waiting for him with a full quiver. He ties it on for Clint. “I’m not sure this is the best setup for you,” he says.

“Their hearts were in the right place,” Clint says. “They just don’t understand that an archer has to be able to arm himself without a second person to strap on the quiver. I’ll get the kinks worked out.”

Kennet grins. “That was something to see, by the way.”

Clint smiles. “It was something to _do_ ,” he admits. “I’ll invite you again. I’ve got to go.”

Kennet nods. “Good luck,” he says.

Clint must look worse than he thinks, because people scatter out of his way at he walks down the hall, bow still in hand. He’s aware of the dirt and blood and the bits of leaves in his hair, but now that he’s out of the range, he can also smell machine oil and something like burnt electronics clinging to him.

Well, Coulson had told him to come as he was. Clint had offered to clean up first.

He can hear raised voices in the conference room, but they fall silent as he lets himself in.

For a few seconds, there is nothing but silence, and then Fury demands, “What the hell happened to you?”

“Went to the range,” he says, and snaps his bow closed and slides it into position on his back. He digs out the handful of discs Capiro had given him, and offers them to Coulson, who takes them, palm spread to glance them over. After a second, he slides another out of his pocket -- the one Adria had given him, Clint thinks, and gestures him over. Clint goes, allows Coulson to unlock his collar and slide each disc onto it. He hesitates, and Clint immediately understands why. Refusing to let Coulson lock his collar onto him in relative privacy is not the same as refusing to do it in front of the sheer number of people in this room, including Hill and Fury.

Clint keeps his hands down and bows his head, and Coulson only hesitates for a moment before he’s locking the collar back into place. Clint’s whole body clenches, and a sharp ache pierces his groin. He takes a steadying breath. When Clint looks up, Coulson is watching him warmly, and Clint feels himself want to sway in Coulson’s direction. He leans back a little instead, and lets his gaze sweep the room.

Fury and Hill are basically right where Clint left them; there’s a pieced together projection of the big map on one wall that someone has been sticking pins in. The two analysts are back, this time carefully arranging Maxwell’s file folders into the correct order, probably according to his instructions.

A man Clint doesn’t know has dragged himself into position beside Maxwell’s chair. Clint assumes this is Sitwell. Maxwell is wearing a collar with two black tags dangling from it; Fury’s collar, Clint assumes. He looks tight as a drum, his face taut with anger, and Clint can see he’s maybe two steps away from giving up in disgust.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Clint asks. He can’t keep the anger out of his voice.

“They’re taking my work,” Maxwell says hoarsely.

“These men are trained analysts,” Hill says. “It only makes sense for them to look it over and try to put it together in some way that’s tactically useful.”

“It was already put together in a way that was tactically useful,” Clint says. “He’s a junior agent, he’s been through tactical training. So what you’re basically saying is that a man with a Doctorate in a field that’s pertinent to this situation shouldn’t have access to his own work, which he’s been handling himself for _years_ without help; that he shouldn’t be a part of the team that is going to be putting it together into something tactically useful? Not only that, but he _knows_ the work. No one is going to be able to collate it faster than he is. He shouldn’t be in a specialists collar at all. He should have an asset collar, and he should be assigned to whomever the head of this project is.” Clint curls his lip a little in disgust. “He’s probably got it practically memorized. If someone gives him a computer that’s safe, he could probably get everything immediately pertinent onto it in just a few hours.”

He turns to Maxwell, who looks close to tears.

“Did you tell them?” Clint asks.

“I tried,” Maxwell says hoarsely.

“Come here, Jason,” Clint says, and Maxwell darts out of his chair and over to Clint in seconds. Clint urges him down to his knees and lets Maxwell lean into his hip, running his more or less clean right hand through his hair. “You’re all right,” he says, low and honest. “We’ll get this sorted. Some of it is that they just don’t know what to do with you yet. You kind of resist any kind of pigeon-holing. You’re a sub, you’re a junior agent, you’ve been doing the work of an analyst. Try to be a little patient while they figure out how to treat you, okay?”

“It wouldn’t matter if they just treated me like I existed, and they don’t unless they have a reason to question me directly. Then it’s like the Inquisition.” He closes his eyes tightly. “They don’t know how hard it was to get where I am,” he says hoarsely. “Now it’s like I’m not even one of them.”

“You’re one of us,” Clint says firmly. “The situation is crazy; I know you know that. And you keep switching on them. I saw you do it the last time I was here. First letting them take over the whole thing, then slipping back into your Agent of SHIELD clothes like pulling on a suit. They can deal with whatever you are, but you’ve got to figure out how to present a consistent front for that. As long as you’re swinging back and forth between them, everyone has to figure out how to handle you all over again. And, Jason, nobody in this room thinks a submissive is lesser than a dominant. There’s a good chance that I could kill everyone in this room before they could even get to a radio, and they all know it. Submissives are _strong_. It’s been so long for you that you’re having trouble remembering, and having to hide it every day must have been like dying by inches, but you don’t have to hide here. Not now. So we need you to help us as well as you can. You need to tell us when we’re fucking it up.” Clint rakes a hand through Maxwell’s hair again and then cups the back of his neck and gently shakes him. “We need you for this. You and I both know it; the rest of them may need a little talking around.”

Maxwell is nodding against Clint’s hip. After just a few more seconds, he stands up, his face still taut, but that look that means he’s about to give up has fallen away. His eyes are red, but he hasn’t been crying.

“Take this over,” Clint says softly. “We both know that you can.”

Maxwell gives a brief nod. “In that stack of file folders, there is a purple one with two yellow tabs,” he says. “It’s my best attempt at a computer program that will collate the data into something immediately useful. I’m _not_ a programmer, so you’ll probably want someone to look it over before we try to use it.”

“You couldn’t have told us about that earlier?” Fury asks, but his voice is even.

“No one asked. You all just wanted to know the order of the files. I can give you graphs and charts and statistics, but I need to plug in the information. Once the code is in shape to run, all we need to do is scan the documents in the right order, and I can give you something solid to look at. And I want a senior analyst in here,” Maxwell insists. “Someone who doesn’t need to see the whole picture at once to be able to pick out the most important pieces of interest.”

“I can do that,” Coulson says at once. “Give me something to start with, and I can keep up with you.”

Maxwell looks relieved.

“Okay,” he says, relaxing a little. “Then until this information is presented as a whole, I’m in charge of this incident. Many of the files are ciphered, which I can deal with on my own, since it’s my cipher. We don’t need an encryptionist.” He turns to Fury. “What I do need is a cup of coffee and some space to work in, as well as a secure computer, not on the network, and access to something to scan in the data.”

Fury looks at him for a second, then at one of the analysts. “Bring enough food and coffee for everyone. In fact, find us a coffee machine; it looks like we’ll be doing this for a while.” He turns his one-eyed gaze on the other analyst. “I want you putting those files in the exact order that Agent Maxwell instructs, never mind the tagging system.”

He turns to Hill. “Get me the best programer we’ve got, and have the techies bring in their best scanner.” Then he turns back to Maxwell again. “This cipher of yours; will it slow down the scanning?”

“No, once I’ve got a computer, I can plug the cipher right into the machine, and it will print out everything in plain language.” He looks at Fury. “I’ve been doing this for eight years, Director. If you let me, I can decode it in less than two hours, assuming that scanner is particularly fast.”

Hill, gently, says, “Why didn’t you say, Agent Maxwell?”

He draws himself up, and with great gravity, answers, “You never gave me a chance to say anything on my own, Deputy Director.”

Fury walks over to him and unlocks his collar. Maxwell winces at having it removed, but doesn’t argue. “We’ll get you an asset handler,” Fury says, and rests his hand on Maxwell’s shoulder. “We’ll get you the kind of collar that you should be wearing. Until then, are you okay without? Sitwell has a temporary collar on him, and he’s both a field agent and an analyst.”

Sitwell, speaking for the first time, says, “I’d like to give it to you.”

Fury’s look is briefly surprised; Clint sees clearer surprise on Coulson’s face, and wonders, suddenly, who Sitwell had lost.

Maxwell doesn’t hesitate. He goes to one knee and tips his head down, murmuring, “Sir.”

Sitwell buckles it on, and Maxwell briefly rests his brow on Sitwell’s knee.

“Are you sure you aren’t a switch?” Sitwell asks seriously.

“I never identified as one, but that was before,” Maxwell says. “Now, I’m not sure. The last few years have been… confusing.”

Sitwell strokes a hand through his hair. “We’ll figure it out,” he says.

Fury, collar still unlocked in his hand, slides one of the black discs off of it. Then he looks at Clint, his face hard to read, and slides the other one off as well, before slipping the collar back into his pocket. He hands one disc to Sitwell and one to Coulson. “These are temporary status upgrades for their clearance,” Fury says. “As long as they’re working this problem, they have full access to everything. I’ll expect them back when the situation is resolved.”

Sitwell murmurs something in the affirmative.

Coulson says, “Why Barton?” something a little hard on his face.

“Because,” Fury says, exasperated, “we can’t seem to get any forward progress going unless he’s here.” He pauses. “And maybe we need some fresh eyes.” He shakes his head wearily. “It’s clear the rest of us aren’t handling things as well as we could be.”

Coulson’s expression relaxes, and he unlocks Clint’s collar, slides the black disc onto it, and relocks it, hand cupping the back of Clint’s neck briefly in a way that makes Clint want to lean back into it.

“So, while we wait for that,” Fury says, “What the hell happened to you?”

“You sent me to the range,” Clint says. “There’s only so much I can do with stationary targets and perfect shooting conditions. I went to the specialists’ range.”

Fury looks bizarrely concerned. “And came back filthy and covered in blood?”

“It’s a good range,” Clint says, grinning a little. “And it’s not that much blood.”

Coulson taps the red disc. “What’s this one for?”

“I killed the Gila Rooster,” Clint says, not really expecting anyone in the room to understand what that means, but abruptly all eyes are on him.

“You killed Hardison’s mechanical nightmare?” Hill asks.

Clint nods, grinning helplessly. “It was great. Terrifying, but great.”

“Hardison is going to be pissed,” Fury says, but he sounds like if he were anyone other than Fury, he’d be laughing.

Coulson lifts Clint’s left arm and inspects it for damage, finding the four cuts, which are more than scratches, but not actually that deep. “Humming-wasps,” Clint says. “I had to get the poison out.”

Clint has a few more scratches and bruises -- he’s not sure what had scratched up his face; maybe one of the monkey-koalas -- but he isn’t really hurt. 

“I’m fine,” he tells Coulson.

“I want to be there the next time you run it,” Coulson says firmly.

“Okay,” Clint agrees. “But I think they’ve got the whole thing on video anyway.”

“I’ll requisition it,” Fury volunteers, sounding unnervingly cheerful. “Now I just have to know.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and get cleaned up, Clint,” Coulson says. “I think we’ve got a handle on what’s going to happen next, but come on back when you’re done.”

Clint nods. “Do you care if I make a pit stop with the Valkyries, first?” he asks. “There are some things I need them to make changes on, and I need to find out if it’s possible to clean the armor, or if it’s just irredeemable.”

“See medical about those cuts, too,” Coulson says firmly. Clint would like to point out again that he’s fine, but Coulson has his bland no-nonsense face on.

“Sir,” Clint agrees, with only a little bit of a whine to it.

Fury snorts, and Coulson throws him a forbidding look.

Coulson walks him to the door; in a low voice, he says, “You can take off or change out the belt if you’re uncomfortable. I don’t know how late I’ll be.” He passes Clint a small silver key.

Clint nods, accepting the key, disappointed and not at the same time. He likes the belt, but he’s chafing a little with all the physical activity he’d just run through, and what is hot in the early afternoon, when they’re likely to have sex in the next handful of hours, is likely to be just sticky and gross after eight or ten hours.

Clint maps out the route in his head, and then decides that he doesn’t care if medical is technically closest; he isn’t going to see them until he gets to their quarters and gets the belt off. He doubts they haven’t seen them before, and he doubts the exam is going to be that intrusive, but still. He makes his way to the Valkyries first.

“Agent Barton!” Lennox says, sounding thrilled to see him. “I see you’ve been testing out the armor. Tell me everything.”

Clint does, explaining the problem with the quiver first. One of the other two shows up -- Clint finds out this one is Maya, which leaves only the blond unnamed -- examining the problem and the two of them brainstorm a little on the answer before the quiver is carefully removed, straps detached. Then other straps are buckled into place before the quiver is handed back to him, fitted with straps Clint is more familiar with, even if they aren’t quite the same. He fits it himself in a matter of seconds and grins at the two of them.

“Foolish of us not to consider…” Maya says, at the same time that Lennox says, “Well, it’s our first time with a bow. It should be nothing to handle the other four vests.”

“Speaking of which,” Clint says, “I’m going to need at least one of them pretty much right now, if you’ve got one ready. And if I could get some instructions on how to clean and mend what I’ve got…”

“We do _all_ mending,” Lennox insists immediately. “The tools are specialized, and training you would take at least a month. If it’s damaged, you bring them to us. Cleaning is easy. Cold water wash, cool dry, all machine safe. Wrinkles will fall right out of them. Nothing to worry about.”

“I told you it was cute that you thought you weren’t going to go through armor so quickly,” Maya says, and winks.

Clint grins. It hadn’t taken him a full day to mess this set up; she’s clearly got a point. “Still,” Clint says. “Hear me out. I won’t have time to learn to use the tools any time soon anyway, but if you’re willing to teach me, I’d like to learn.” Lennox is giving him a considering look. “I sometimes go out for a long time,” he says. “And I don’t like the possibility that I won’t have the ability to make sure everything is in working order.”

Lennox says, “Let me think. It takes a great deal of care and dexterity…” she pauses, and then grins. “Which obviously is something you possess in quantity. I’ve never had an agent ask. They think it’s done by magic.”

“If you would just think about it,” Clint says. “That’s all I ask.”

Lennox nods, and vanishes into the back room, returning only a minute or so later with a vest identical to the one Clint is wearing; she’s already replaced the harness for the quiver, somehow, in magical Valkyrie fashion.

“Take this,” she says, handing it off to Clint. “When you’ve cleaned up, bring the one you’re wearing back to me; there’s a small tear in the back I’ll want to tend to, but I imagine you won’t want to change until you’ve cleaned up.” 

He realizes the blood hadn’t seemed to unduly concern either of the Valkyries.

“Wash the pants; the leather on the leg protection is still sound, and will remain so even if it begins to look a little ragged around the cut edges. To keep it clean, just wipe it down with a damp cloth, and I’ll get you some cream to work into the leather to keep it supple. We’ll give you a second set, just in case, but the outer armor is likely to last you much longer than the rest, probably years, barring catastrophe.” She examines Clint’s filthy boots. “Extra boots, I think. You seem the type to go through them.”

Clint tries not to look guilty.

“But the boots you can just rinse,” Lennox tells him. “They’ll be dry in twenty minutes.”

“Remember, baked goods,” Maya tells him.

“The very next time I’m here,” he promises sincerely. “Thanks for the help.”

“You’re a gem,” Lennox tells him. “Come any time.”

Clint leaves with his new vest, feeling a little silly at how pleased it makes him to know that they think he’s ‘a gem.’

In their quarters, Clint shuffles the pants into a pile for washing, lays out the vest so he won’t forget to take it back to the Valkyries, and then scrubs off the worst of the dirt and muck from the boots. He’ll give them a real rinse later, but he doesn’t want to wait the twenty minutes for them to dry.

The belt comes off easily, Clint clenching down around the plug to keep from making a mess. He puts it on the kitchen counter with plans to come back to it; he knows Coulson keeps sanitizing supplies in here, he’s just not sure where, and isn’t willing to walk around naked looking for them with his ass still full of lube and come.

The shower is a godsend. At some point, Coulson had put a rinse kit inside -- probably something out of one of the boxes -- and Clint uses it for entirely practical purposes, though doing so makes him blush hot enough to make him feel a little dizzy in the warm steamy heat of the shower stall. It’s just one of those things he reacts to. When Coulson finds out, and Clint is sure that he will, he’s going to have a great time humiliating the hell out of Clint with it. He can’t lie to himself that he really minds.

He can feel things shifting in his head.

Soap barely stings at the cuts on his arm as he washes away the blood. The hot water itself is actually a little more painful on the scratches on his face. He washes dirt and leaves out of his hair and, machine oil and burnt electronics stench off the rest of him. He wonders if Hardison is actually going to be pissed about the Gila Rooster. Somehow, Clint doesn’t think so. He think that Hardison will be delighted to design something even more terrifying and deadly.

His muscles loosen under the spray, and he considers jerking off. As far as he knows, Coulson doesn’t have a rule against it. But it turns out that he’s just not that interested, considering the sex he’s been having the last couple of days, so he just washes and gets out, rubbing himself dry perfunctorily and then, remembering how snug the armor is, with a little more care.

His new underwear is still the best underwear ever invented -- where can he get baked goods for the Valkyries? The cafeteria? Would Coulson take Clint out, or at the least be willing to go out on his own? If Clint had the supplies, he could probably bake something. How hard could it be? -- and the clean pants pull up smoothly, fit so he can move, armored so things can’t kill him. The new vest goes on right after the deodorant, and the quiver slides right into place. The cinch that holds the bow in place is exactly where Clint is accustomed to it being, and he slides it home easily.

Clean black socks -- to match, although he would consider investing in maroon socks to match the vest, just because it would be funny -- and the calf-high, stiff-but-supple boots, all buckles, no ties. He thinks about the extra leg protection, decides against it, and then considers the fact that he’s not wearing a belt under his clothes. He isn’t truly worried about it, but it only takes two minutes to buckle on the leg protection, and while he doesn’t have a problem with killing someone if they actually tried to have a go at him, one thing he doesn’t want to do it’s put Coulson in a position in which he has to beat someone to death. It feels like it would be dirtying Coulson up, somehow. If the situation ever does come up, Clint will kill whomever tries it himself before he’ll make Coulson do it for him.

It isn’t that he doesn’t think Coulson hasn't killed people before, and it isn’t even that he thinks Coulson shouldn’t kill to protect Clint if the situation warrants it. That’s part of Coulson’s job. But it’s Clint’s job to protect himself, and he doesn’t want Coulson dirtying his hands over something like this, no matter how good it feels to know that Coulson _would_ do it.

He buckles on his sidearm, reloads fully on clips and bullets, spends just a few minutes cleaning both his knives, which are absolutely covered in unidentifiable gunk, and slips them on, one in a sheath, one in a boot. He switches where they are all the time anyway. It’s not good to be predictable. He wonders if he could get the Valkyries to sew in some sheaths into the boots, too, just for the extra carrying capacity.

Lots and lots of baked goods, he decides. He wonders if Coulson bakes.

Medical is quick and almost painless; they give him antibiotics, just in case. The doctor on duty, Bremen, his nametag reads, would really like to put a stitch or two in each of the cuts. Clint refuses, and then, at the odd look of frustration on his face, explains that it’s his bow arm, and if he has to use it, the stitches will just tear out, maybe making things worse, though probably only making him uncomfortable.

Bremen goes with butterfly bandages instead, and says, “Thank you for telling me,” with what seems like a lot more gravity than the situation warrants.

Clint blinks in confusion, and Bremen shrugs.

“When assets or specialists come in, it’s pretty common for them to refuse to be treated for all or part of their injuries, but they don’t tell us why. This I can put in your file. If you come in with cuts on your arm, we can use surgical glue if they’re bad but not too bad; some things just have to have stitches, but we can read right off your chart what to do that concerns your arm, and then we don’t have to feel like we’re not being allowed to do our jobs when specialists check out AMA. So, it matters. We can work around things like this. Maybe you could try letting the rest of them know.”

“I’ll try,” Clint says, and means it. “It’s not your fault, though. Sometimes we just can’t let the treatment interfere with our ability to do our jobs.”

“No, I see that. Like I said, thank you for explaining. A lot of it makes more sense now.” Bremen gives him a smile. “Your face, though, I can’t do anything about. The bruise is going to last at least three days. The scratches should have mostly faded by tomorrow; they might itch a little, but in a couple of days they’ll be gone entirely.”

“Yeah, no one can ever do anything about my face,” Clint says wryly. “I was just born this way.”

Bremen laughs.


	8. Chapter 8

Phil is looking over the map on the wall when Clint returns in the same way he always seems to enter a room: dramatically. He pushes both doors open, arms spread wide, biceps on lovely display, and stalks inside, his eyes darting everywhere at once.

He’s clean and wearing a fresh set of armor, and Phil almost can’t imagine Clint _without_ the bow and quiver on his back, even though he’d only seen it for the first time today.

Fury glances up with a frown, but Clint hardly glances at him. His gaze goes first to Phil, something in it that makes Phil think Clint is just checking him over for injuries. Then he turns it on Maxwell, who is plugging the cipher into the computer they’d found him. Sitwell is sitting close to him, not touching, just close, and Clint seems to consider that for a long moment. Then his eyes narrow and he walks around behind the computer and plucks an ethernet cable out of the back of it. 

“I remember him saying ‘off the network,’” Clint says. “Does anyone other than me remember hearing him say that?”

Maxwell looks at the cable in surprise.

Hill, surprisingly, takes the cable out of Clint’s hand and plugs it back in. “It’s not on the network,” she says. “It’s plugged into the scanner only.”

“Is the scanner on the network?” Clint asks, brow arched, and Hill draws up, expression going uncertain. She turns on her heel and walks toward the two techies with the scanner.

Clint surreptitiously unplugs the ethernet cable again.

Phil doesn’t mention it. They can always plug it back in, if need be.

For the first little while, Clint sticks close to Maxwell, bringing him coffee, asking for details of what he’s doing in an offhand manner that suggests that he hardly knows what he’s asking, but Maxwell responds enthusiastically, apparently just happy to have someone listen to him. Within ten or fifteen minutes, Sitwell, who is much better versed in the subject matter, picks up on the questioning, and Clint backs off, seeming satisfied. When Maxwell rubs at his eyes tiredly, and Sitwell rests a comforting hand on the back of his neck, Clint actually smiles.

Fury surprises Phil by asking Clint, “How do you manage to infiltrate anything if you’re that bad at computers?”

Clint gives him a serious look. “Computers aren’t the same things as security systems, for the most part,” he says. “Security systems can be bypassed if you know how to do it. So I read about them a lot. Computers… I’m not completely stupid with them, but I haven’t ever had the kind of life where I could really sit down and learn about them, either. If I know exactly what I’m supposed to do, I can handle a computer, but I have to have exact instructions. I just don’t know enough about them to trust in my ability to wing it.”

“The time is coming where most security systems will be meshed with computer oversight so that you can’t just bypass the one and ignore the other,” Fury says. “How would you feel about computer security classes?”

Clint grins a little. “Knowledge is power, sir,” he says, and Fury rolls his eye.

“You’re a pain in the ass, Barton,” Fury says, sounding more resigned than anything.

“The Valkyries think I’m a gem,” Clint counters.

“Valkyries?” Fury asks.

“The Armory staff,” Phil clarifies, keeping his amusement off his face.

Fury looks like he’d like to ask why they are the Valkyries, and simultaneously doesn’t want to know the answer.

Fury wanders over to Phil next, and in a quiet, thoughtful voice, asks, “A switch?”

Phil considers how he wants to answer carefully. “He’s something different,” he says finally.

“Different than what?” Fury asks.

“Than everyone else,” Phil says.

Fury snorts. “Ain’t that the truth,” he says, but without rancor.

“What did he say to you?” Phil asks. “That made you kick him out,” he clarifies.

Fury sighs. “Nothing but the truth,” he says. “But the mouth on him, Phil. You’re going to have to do something about that.”

“I find it rather refreshing, actually,” Phil says truthfully. “You always know where you stand.”

“You always did like them a little messed up,” Fury says.

“Part of my dynamic, I think,” Phil says. “I’m a fixer by nature.”

“Just don’t go soft on him,” Fury says.

Phil chuckles. “Have you met him? If he thought I was going soft on him, he’d probably start tracking down missions of his own.”

Fury looks alarmed.

“I wouldn’t waste his skills,” Phil says. “You know that. Why are you worried?”

“Something about him,” Fury says, and shrugs. “Something not right. A perfect run on his first mission, providing intel without trying to take over the op, and then some fairly vicious sarcasm pointed in my direction about the way I was running this op and treating this submissive, and basically telling me I was doing it all wrong. It’s not normal to run cool and hot like that, not even for switches. He’s.” Fury pauses and give Phil a wry half-grin, half-grimace. “Different.”

“He’ll settle,” Phil says, and is actually pretty sure that he’s right. “But think about this, Nick,” he adds. “When was the last time we had a specialist earn a dozen tags in two days? One of them from _you_.”

Fury grimaces. “I don’t think there ever has been,” he admits. “I’m not saying he’s not extraordinary. I’m saying he’s strange.” Fury cocks his head. “I’ve read his file; I expected him to be a little strange. But this is… Did you see him put Maxwell down? Not like he’d done it before, there was no ritual in it; more like he just knew what to do. And the way he talked to me and Hill, absolutely fearless. But he wasn’t upset or surprised when I reprimanded him, there was no… resentment there. He looked like he’d expected it. He looked like a man who had deliberately decided that the line had to be crossed, no matter the repercussions.” Fury shakes his head again. “Don’t get me wrong, I think we can use a man like that. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s just… strange.”

“You don’t trust him?” Phil asks, ignoring the flutter of worry in his chest.

“That’s part of what makes him strange,” Fury says. “I like him just fine. He’s funny, even when he’s being a smartass, he’s adaptable, competent, a whole list of good qualities. I think he’ll do his job, and do it well. He’s just still strange.”

“He’s been on his own a long time,” Phil says. “He’ll adjust.”

“If by adjust you mean watch Sitwell and Maxwell like a rottweiler waiting to see if it needs to start ripping people apart,” Fury says.

“Maxwell trusted him,” Phil says. “I think that’s not something Clint has experienced often.”

“And what about you,” Fury asks almost casually. “Does he trust you?”

“We’re getting there,” Phil says. “But I trust him, if it makes a difference.”

“You know it does,” Fury says.

Clint gets up to look at the big map on the wall; at first Phil just thinks he’s stretching and maybe looking for something to do, but then he notices the line of tension in his shoulders.

“Are these actual shipping lanes?” he asks Maxwell.

Maxwell nods. “Those locations, though, I’m not sure about those. They’re ones I’ve been trying to track since right before I joined SHIELD, and they clearly go somewhere, but I can’t really track anything identifying from the imports in the area, so they’re almost guesses. A lot of it is because the types of shipments the submissives might have been concealed in went into fairly major port cities; there isn’t any way to track what they’re using as opposed to what they’re shipping to other places. I only tracked them that far via ship registries,” he says.

“These go everywhere,” Clint says a little sharply, his eyes narrowed as he surveys the map.

“I know,” Maxwell says. “Some of it could be wrong. It’s a little bit like watching a flock of geese fly over, taking a trajectory, and guessing where they’re going to settle. It’s not an exact science. But even the ones that aren’t right, it’s not like they’re solo markers. There are at least two or three that seem to lead to that area, so I marked it. If it was just one, I usually just kept a tally, just in case I had to go back and find them. Anything more than two, I marked, because once could be a blip, and maybe twice could be, too, but I wasn’t willing to risk it.”

Clint turns to look at the table, finds a red marker, and begins tracing the shipping lanes with one finger. Each time he gets close to the end of of one, he marks a series of dashes away from the lanes, studying the maps carefully, and then circles something on the land mass the lanes connect to. He does this two dozen times, holding the cap of the pen between his teeth; sometimes he circles more than one point on the map, but usually just one.

“Pirates,” he says eventually, and pulls out his phone.

It’s his old phone, Phil notes. He pops the back off of it, pulls out the battery, and plucks the sim card out of it. “My contacts,” he says, offering the card to Fury, who takes it, looking surprised. “Lyndon Hale. I can’t help you with him, as he’s got a big bounty on my head, but he’s who you need to get information from.”

“On pirates?” Fury asks.

Clint nods grimly. “There’s no way to get a shipment of human cargo through customs in a major port city without a huge amount of corruption or a healthy dose of stealth. A few of these probably did get through, but I’m betting they were mostly rerouted through unregistered vessels and taken to the closest pirate-friendly port they could get to. I circled the ones I know about, but I don’t know them all, not in the kind of spread we’re talking about, points on every continent. But Hale will know them all in his area, and some of the others. He’s…” Clint quirks a painful little smile. “The pirate king, in all but name. He’s not brilliant, but he’s wily. He’s got some smart people backing him, which keeps him in his position, but if you can get him alone and threaten him credibly, he’ll be able to tell you not only where he dropped people, but where they were probably headed. And he’ll know that for other fleets as well, because he may not be brilliant, but he’s well-informed.”

“And you know this about pirates because…?” Fury asks.

Clint shrugs. “Had a job. More like a series of jobs.” He grins. “Technically, I’ve _been_ a pirate. It’s not as glamorous as you might think.” He cocks his head. “Hale operates primarily within the South Pacific, but if you give me a little time, I can probably find out who runs what over other large bodies of water, too.” He frowns. “It was Marguerite LeSandre over the Mediterranean last time I heard, but that was five years ago, so I can’t be sure. North and South Atlantic were pretty scattered, smaller ships, no big leadership, but I do still have contacts there, so I should be able to get some information.”

“Pirates,” Fury says.

“It makes sense,” Maxwell says. “I could often find locations that they’d been taken from, and was able to guesstimate where they were going _to_ through ship registries, but it’s not like they were going through customs with U.S. passports. I drew what conclusions I could.”

Clint goes very still for a moment. “They’ve got to have some of them ready to ship out right now, or are just waiting to fill out a few containers,” he says. “We should have people at customs searching containers.”

“Do you know how many…” Fury begins.

“Infrared binocs ought to handle most of it,” Clint says simply. “You’ll have to walk the yard, but you’ve got the manpower.”

Fury looks at Hill.

“I’m on it,” she says, and disappears.

“You’re irritatingly useful,” Fury tells Clint.

“Yes, sir, I’ve been told,” Clint says without cracking a smile.

After the third time Clint yawns widely enough to nearly unhinge his jaw, Phil settles down next to him. “Why don’t you go to bed?”

“There’s something I’m missing here,” Clint says tiredly. “It doesn’t make sense. After you build your own private army, why keep kidnapping submissives? What do you need them for?” He turns to Phil. “The only thing that make sense is that you do it to arm other people. But these destinations are all over the world, even without knowing exactly where they were headed once they were off port. So who is this guy arming, and why? Someone or some group he’s associated with? Some organization that’s scattered like that? This is just a big-plan setup, long-term planning. Who works like that? Who could this Von Doom guy be working with that would be willing to work like that?” He shakes his head. “I feel like I’m missing one puzzle piece, and if I could…”

Clint stops talking because Phil stands up and walks away, headed directly to Fury.

“Get our intel on known Hydra bases and troop movement,” Phil says. “Overlay the maps.”

Fury gives him a long look. “This your specialist’s idea?” he asks.

“No, but something he said made me think of it. If it’s right, we’re going to have our hands full. If we can track the general area the people were taken to, we can probably assume there’s a high level concentration of Hydra personnel nearby.”

“Why Hydra?” Fury asks, but he turns to face Phil more squarely, eye sharp and attentive.

“Something Clint said. That if Von Doom is done building his own private army, why keep kidnapping submissives? It’s risky, the money is probably not an incentive from our knowledge of Von Doom, so why? You do it if you’re trying to arm some other group or individual. Who would be interested in doing something like this, plan it for years, play the long game?” Phil shrugs. “Clint doesn’t know enough about Hydra to make the connection, but he would’ve made the connection if he had. Which also means that Von Doom and Hydra have some kind of joint endeavor in the works. We have to get on this before it’s too late.”

Fury nods tightly. “Get him to bed; God knows he’s helped enough. Do not tell him I said that. Then get our Hydra analysts in here with everything we’ve got. I’ve got people on their way to talk to ‘the pirate king,’ and we can hope that hits paydirt.” He pauses. “Do you need to take him down? Because you’re probably going to be up most of the night, but if you want to take an hour, I can cope.”

“I’ll have to see when we get home,” Phil says. Then, “He’s strange, he’s different, because his skills all overlap. We keep ours separate. Our Agents, our analysts, our assets, our specialists. He thinks like all of them put together, and it makes him better than most of the rest of us at seeing patterns. There’s nothing to do about it now, sir, but I suggest we rethink the way SHIELD integrates some of its core personal, assuming we don’t all go down in flames during this op.”

Fury looks at him for a long moment. “You admire him.”

“There’s a lot to admire,” Phil says, not attempting to defend himself or hide anything.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Fury says, and gestures for Phil to take Clint away. “At this rate, he’s going to jingle like a belly dancer when he walks, he’ll have so many tags,” he mutters, but he sounds amused.

Phil can easily imagine. For the moment, though, he just pries Clint out of his chair and they make their way home. Phil doesn’t mention that he won’t be staying. If Clint’s going to be pissed, better it happen in their quarters than in the corridor.

“You had an idea, didn’t you?” Clint asks, when they’re about halfway there.

“I did,” Phil agrees. “Something you said made me connect some dots.”

“Am I allowed to know?” Clint asks.

“With Fury’s tag around your neck, you’re allowed to know anything there is to know,” Phil says. “But it can wait until tomorrow, once we’ve checked things out and have a better idea if I’m right.”

Clint doesn’t argue, but he does say, “You’re going back?”

Phil sighs. “I have to. I’m trained to think like this, and there aren’t many of us that are.”

“And you’re the best,” Clint says, sounding satisfied.

Phil refrains from espousing his abilities, even though he _is_ the best.

Phil thumbs open the door to their quarters, and Clint sighs a little. “The armor is great, but you can’t wear it all the time,” he tells Phil. “Hours at a time, even days in a hot zone, but all I want right now is something that is baggy and leaves me totally vulnerable.”

Phil laughs and goes to work on the leg armor. Between the two of them, they get the rest of it off pretty quickly, Clint’s bow and quiver travelling into the bedroom with him. Phil finds him a loose, soft t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts.

Clint collapses on his back on the bed groaning, “Freedom!”

Phil hustles him under the covers, and bends to kiss him without thinking. He freezes halfway there, unsure of his welcome. They’d talked about the kissing, but hadn’t resolved anything.

Clint catches him by the back of the neck and pulls him down, and the kiss is heated and sweet, but without intent to act on it.

“Get back before dawn, and you can take whatever you want,” Clint says throatily.

Phil’s breath catches. “I think it might have been better for my peace of mind when you were recalcitrant and suspicious,” he says.

Clint laughs. “Call me if you need me,” he says sleepily, and Phil lets himself out of the room silently.

It takes hours to overlay maps and pinpoint possibilities; Clint’s ‘pirate king’ is captured and questioned, and refuses to give any information to anyone other than Clint. Fury gives Phil a grim look that says this is _his_ fault somehow, but he makes the call to bring the man to SHIELD. It’ll be at least another day wasted, but there’s nothing to be done about it.

They don’t know where the actual people are, yet, which is the thing that frustrates them all. Maxwell’s work is superior in every other way: they know where they were taken from, they know, in general, where they were taken _to_ , but they don’t know the final leg of their destinations. Even without that, though, with Clint’s pirate ports circled, there are some fairly close Hydra bases those people could hypothetically have been taken to and held.

Fury manages to get information on who might smuggle people across other large bodies of water, and where those other ships might make port, and is able to add his own circled ports and shipping lane divergences. He’s still looking into who might be the maestro behind those movements, but Phil doesn’t doubt that between Fury and Clint, they’ll figure it out.

Phil finally listens to Maxwell talk about incident Zero, which he is almost certain had been the disappearance of an entire submissive training encampment outside Mount Rainier National Park. Maxwell has an intimidating list of large groups of subs going missing all at once. It’s not enough to cover all of them that were taken, but it’s enough to make Phil vaguely furious that these events weren’t linked together by the press or law enforcement. Or SHIELD.

Which is at least partially on Phil himself. He had known the statistics and he hadn’t dug into them. He’d been told there were analysts assigned, some of their best, but that hardly matters, especially as long as it had gone on. Phil should’ve gotten involved. His only excuse is that it had been so gradual.

They spend hours discussing specific Hydra personnel, those they know about, at least, trying to decide who had stepped in to make the agreement with Von Doom. The only thing that keeps Hydra from being more dangerous than they already are, is that they lack the Red Skull, they lack a single face or voice to unite around. If they’ve found someone, SHIELD has to know about it immediately, should know about it already. A united Hydra could topple western governments.

Everything would be easier if it were possible to infiltrate Hydra for any serious length of time. But Hydra is militant about it; they’re like the world’s most terrifying fraternity. You might be able to get in once or twice, posing as a pledge brother, they might even accept you into the fraternity for a few weeks or months, but SHIELD has never managed to get a single agent into the upper echelons of the organization, and they’ve lost so many, too many, trying. The best they’ve been able to do is watch and wait for a Hydra member to get disillusioned, and then help that member escape and break down whatever intel he’s willing to provide. It happens often enough that their lack of insider intel is somewhat mitigated, and very occasionally, they’re able to get someone inside and out again as a specialist, someone possessing skills that Hydra lacks (computer and security skills much of the time; they never use the same person twice), which doesn’t provide intel, but often provides SHIELD with the ability to get into and out of a base in force, if they get intel that a base needs taking out, and has in the past provided them with the layouts of several of their compounds, some of which they’ve been able to use, some of which they are still waiting to be able to find a way to use. 

Most notably, they have the blueprints to Hydra’s secret high command, set deep into the countryside of Peru and provided by, surprisingly enough, Tony Stark, who had, for whatever reasons of his own, decided to set himself up to be in a position to the be the one to build it when it had gone up two years ago. Stark’s involvement is uncharacteristic, but not totally outside of the realm of his abilities, and he’d handed the structural blueprints over to SHIELD as soon as he’d had them, without even offering a suggestion about how they should use them, another deeply uncharacteristic move for Stark. 

They don’t get information out of Peru, and they don’t know much about Hydra’s high command, but they know what that base looks like, and have more or less just been waiting for a tactically useful time to use that information against Hydra. It’s made more difficult by a strategically complex political fiction that Hydra and the Peruvian government had created that gives it what amounts to Embassy status within Peru, and the World Council will never let them go in and just take it out without some evidence of it being a direct threat. But they have it in hand, if it ever comes to a situation in which they can use it, and that’s not nothing. It’s not as much as they would like. It’s not the same as having a mole actually located within that command. But it’s something they might be able to use someday, under the right set of circumstances. Maybe this set, if they can connect Hydra with the disappearance of U.S. citizens, and can convince the World Council that the Sons of German Soldiers of World War Two, the name under which the Embassy operates, and Hydra itself are directly linked. Well. It could be something.

But mostly what they have got is people operating around Hydra, interacting with them on a mercenary level, but no one inside really deep. They’re aware of the arms dealers that Hydra deals with, and can track anything immediately lethal and take measures, but that’s all it is. 

Aside from their beliefs and their uniforms and masked faces, Hydra is a black hole of information. All they really know about them is that they didn’t die out with the Red Skull or Nazi Germany, and they don’t know why. The only sure thing about Hydra is their terrible patience interspersed with homicidal rampages that no one can explain. But they have the kind of terrible patience it would take to kidnap submissives over the course of years and attempt to forge them into a fighting force. 

The idea of Hydra operating in conjunction with Von Doom has catastrophe written all over it.

“Enough,” Fury says finally; it says something that even _he_ looks frazzled and weary. “We can’t do anything more here without Barton’s pirate king. Lock the room down, specialist security, and we’ll all show up again whenever we wake up or I call you.”

Maxwell, who is nearly drooping at his computer, shifts in total silence, and without seeming to be aware of it, leans into Sitwell’s chest, as though he might go to sleep right there.

Phil wonders what time is it, abruptly remembering Clint’s offer, though he’s honestly not sure he’s got the stamina to take him up on it. His watch says five after six in the morning. He stands up, his back crackling, and walks out the door without bothering to bid anyone a good night.

Clint isn’t out of bed, at least, Phil is pleased to note. If he can’t take Clint now, he will at least have the option of falling asleep next to him.

The urge to sleep flees abruptly when he steps into the bedroom.

Clint says, “Thank God,” his voice a husky tremor. He’s managed to tie himself to the bed at three points, only his left hand free, and that wrapped in a long length of leather he’s holding tightly enough to bite into his skin. He’s wearing the cock ring, and smells strongly of sex and sweat. His cock is swollen and red, jerking a little in time with his heartbeat against his belly, and his eyes are wide and swimming with need.

“How long have you been like this,” Phil asks, cock filling rapidly as he stares at the tension in Clint’s body.

“Maybe an hour,” Clint says. “I… I had to put the cock ring on, Phil, or I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself from jerking off.” The way he says it, his tone, is all apology, as though he thinks Phil will be displeased at Clint’s initiative.

“That’s okay,” Phil says gently. “You did exactly right.” Some of the tension drains out of Clint’s body, but he pulls at the leather around his left arm, bicep bunching as the edges of the leather bite deep lines into his skin. 

“Can you please, I couldn’t reach…”

Phil circles the bed and sees the cuff dangling from the O ring at the top corner of the bed. Carefully, he asks, “Clint, do you want me to tie you down?”

“Yesssss,” Clint hisses, sounding relieved and needy at once.

Phil unwraps the leather from Clint’s arm -- it looks like it had been pulled tight enough in places to bruise -- and fits Clint’s wrist into the cuff instead.

Even more of the tension escapes Clint’s body, and he pants softly, eyes closed, face still.

Phil glances around, and sees the tube of lube on the bedside table, along with something that had last been seen in one of the boxes that is designed to push lube deeply into the body. Phil glances at Clint’s hole, and it’s visibly slick, a tiny puddle beneath his ass.

Phil’s suit pants become intolerable, and he begins stripping immediately, slinging his clothes over the back of a chair, which he never does. He leaves on Clint’s underwear. He thinks Clint might want to see how much of Phil escapes them when he’s fully hard.

The position Clint has bound himself in is difficult, knees up and spread wide toward the edges of the bed. He’d had the presence of mind to slide a couple of pillows under his ass, or Phil might be hesitant to go forward, for fear that Clint might pull something.

Clint opens his eyes, his eyes roving across Phil’s face first -- they are already misty with the pull of submission, something Phil has never seen so soon or so clearly -- and then sliding down to Phil’s cock. Clint groans, which had been more or less what Phil had hoped for, though it’s still enough to twist a satisfied and somehow… triumphant knot low in his belly, to know for sure that Clint looks at him and _wants_ him. Phil skins down the underwear and settles himself between Clint’s thighs. Clint has managed to push himself into some fairly engrossing subspace, and Phil would love to take advantage of that, but that’s what it would be. Taking advantage. Clint hadn’t known he’d end up bound and wanting for over an hour, hadn’t known he’d be presenting this much of his need to Phil.

The best Phil can do right now is help Clint clear his head a little, so he can make an informed decision about what he wants to show Phil.

Phil leans forward and snaps the cock ring off, tugging it away, and Clint whines a little, a little spurt of precome streaming out of his slit. Phil leans over his cock to lick it away, and Clint makes a pained noise, almost desolate.

Phil licks at the head of Clint’s cock, and then fists a hand around the base to angle it upward. He glances up at Clint, and his eyes are closed tightly, but not tightly enough to hold back the tears slipping from the corners of his eyes to vanish into his hairline.

“Clint, do you want me to suck you?” Phil asks, simultaneously deeply turned on and concerned at Clint’s reaction.

“With the… can I have the cock ring, Phil. I want. It was over so fast last time, and I’ve never…” Clint’s voice is so choked up it’s hard to understand him at all, but the last three words… He’s never what?

Phil desperately wants to know and is fairly sure he shouldn’t ask. The most likely possibility seems like it’s also the least likely possibility.

Still, Phil winds the cockring around Clint’s balls and shaft and snaps it tight. Clint’s breathing goes quick and erratic, and when Phil bends to slide his mouth over the head of Clint’s cock this time, Clint shudders all over, his mouth open and panting, his eyes still clenched shut.

Some little flash of intuition makes Phil pull back just enough to say, “Open your eyes, Clint. I want you to watch.”

Clint does, eyes dazed and agonized, and Phil takes him in slowly, lots of tongue, hollowing his cheeks as he pulls off, while Clint stares, his body shaking against Phil’s. It’s one of the longest blow jobs Phil has given in years, measured by the weight of Clint’s gaze and the rasp of his breathing and the small sounds that escape him, sounds that could be pain, but Phil knows aren’t. Steadily, Clint’s gaze becomes less dazed and more agonized, and his breathing grows reedy. The small sounds that escape him come close to whimpers, and his hips jerk and spasm. When Phil tests the weight of Clint’s balls in his hand and finds them tight and hot, Clint throws back his head and cries out at the pressure, but he says nothing, and Phil is pretty sure he’s going to continue to say nothing.

He considers asking, but it’s not even a question, and Phil… He isn’t strong enough to resist Clint’s honest submission, no matter how he’d reached this point.

Phil slides a finger behind Clint’s balls and slips a finger into him, barely any resistance, and then presses a fingertip against Clint’s prostate at the same time that he jerks the cock ring free of Clint’s cock. Clint pumps down Phil’s throat immediately, hips shuddering, but doesn’t make a sound, his mouth open, his eyes so wide he looks almost shocked, and when he finally stops coming he makes a sound, so low Phil can’t make it out at first, it’s just a string of syllables until Phil listens hard, and Clint is murmuring, “Thank you, thank you, sir, thank you.”

Phil leans up and runs his tongue along Clint’s abs, into the dip of his naval, across his breast bone and over the hard muscle of Clint’s pectoral. He catches a nipple between his teeth and worries it gently, and grazes the line of Clint’s collarbone with his teeth.

Clint pants and squirms, eyes open and watching, as Phil had told him to, and Phil feels a guilty mix of pity and more of that triumph. Clint is not a man who is used to being given pleasure, of being appreciated for his beauty; whatever had happened between the circus and SHIELD had been perfunctory at best, and Phil fiercely wants to teach him how to take pleasure, to be the one to overcome the desolation of Clint’s distant past and the isolation he has obviously been existing within ever since.

Phil catches the side of Clint’s throat in his teeth and bites down on that firm, salty skin until Clint moans, and then leans in to kiss Clint, the taste of Clint’s come still strong on his tongue. Clint allows himself to be kissed, soft and easy, until Phil presses and presses at him, and Clint begins to kiss back, thrusting his tongue into Phil’s mouth and biting at him.

When Phil pulls back, there is more of _Clint_ in Clint’s eyes, but that soft ease hasn’t faded from his face or from his body. “Phil,” Clint whispers, and chains clank against the frame of the bed. “You want me like this.”

“I do,” Phil confesses. “I do, _so_ badly. But you don’t have to give it to me, Clint. I’ll still want you without it.”

“I’m not there,” Clint says. “I’m not there where you want me to be, but this is as close as I’ve ever been.” Clint’s eyes are luminous. “I can give you this much.”

Phil doesn’t fight it. Maybe he can’t, even if he should. He knows this isn’t as close as Clint has ever been; he’s seen Clint in the throes of deep submission. But maybe it’s as close as he can come consciously, and that’s still something Phil wants.

“How much did you use?” Phil asks, gesturing toward the lube insertion tool, which Phil privately thinks of as the turkey baster, even though it looks more like a syringe.

“About half?” Clint says uncertainly. “It looked like a lot.”

Phil takes it and fills it from the bottle beside it, adding about three quarters. “We use almost a whole bottle every time,” he tells Clint, and slips the slim, slightly slick syringe into Clint as far as it will go. He’s careful to make sure he’s spreading lube around the top of Clint’s passage as well as the bottom, something he’s betting Clint didn’t consider.

“How do you want this to go?” Phil asks Clint. “I can take you, push you, or I can go so slow it’s barely painful at all.”

Clint looks puzzled. “You always go slow.”

“Not as slow as I can go,” Phil assures him.

“I want… I want you to just do it,” Clint says. “However it makes you feel good.” He blushes, but looks defiant at the same time.

Phil slicks up his cock and drags his knees up the bed. “You know what makes me feel good,” he growls, burning at Clint’s words, at the offer there that he knows must be frightening for Clint to make, and Clint shivers, but his eyes have gone hazy again.

Phil presses the head of his cock against Clint’s hole and Clint shudders, but his body goes lax immediately for the first time, no resistance at all as Phil positions his hips and presses inside. Clint jerks out a little scream as the head of Phil’s cock breaches his hole, and groans low in his throat as Phil presses harder, making room inside Clint for his cock. He pushes in further than he ever has before the first time, a third of his cock rammed up inside Clint’s hot ass, and Clint cries out, and then just silently cries, until Phil pulls back and begins to stroke into him, slick enough with what he had lubed his ass with, on top of what Clint had already done, that he doesn’t lube his cock again when he strokes out, just presses back and rocks into Clint a little roughly. Clint chokes out little sounds of pain, but his cock is hard again against his belly, and Phil doesn’t hesitate to take him in hand.

Clint sucks in a sound of surprise, back arching, and then rocks up as much as he can into Phil’s fist, letting out little mingled sounds of pleasure and discomfort. Phil takes advantage of the distraction to stretch Clint wide another two inches or so, and Clint writhes on his cock, his hips twisting slightly from side to side. When Phil looks at his face, Clint looks almost amazed, and Phil guesses he’s managed to find his prostate. He struggles to keep that angle as he thrusts into Clint, his fist still wrapped around his cock, and Clint is letting out a low, open-throated moan of pleasure and effort that twists deep into the root of Phil’s belly. He takes another inch, Clint barely whining, and he’s fucking Clint fairly deeply now. Clint’s thighs are clenching and shivering, and Phil jerks his cock roughly, twisting at his slick skin.

“Phil, Phil,” Clint breathes, twisting up and onto his cock a little way, making Phil grind his teeth with pleasure. “Stop, I’ll come,” he says hoarsely. “I have to wait, I want to…”

Phil is so surprised that Clint would admit to it that his hips still for a long moment, and his hand stills on Clint’s cock. “You want what, Clint?” he asks, but Clint is still trying to work the rest of Phil’s cock into him, hips working, body blisteringly tight around the head of Phil’s cock.

“I want you all the way, I want you to fuck me.” Clint’s voice is a cracked wreck, but his face is open with wanting, his eyes pleading, his hips still working to take Phil’s cock a millimeter at a time. “I want to come, _after_ , when you finish, when you’re done with me, when you’re done.” It isn’t garbled at all, but Phil is still almost certain Clint isn’t fully aware of what he’s asking, admitting.

Even so, he groans, helpless at hearing Clint ask for it, and jerks forward the last inch or so; Clint lets out a harsh cry, but is almost immediately surging up against Phil. “Do it, do it,” he whispers, “Please, Phil, need you to come in me.”

Phil pulls back almost entirely, and slides back inside in one long stroke; Clint cries out at the burn, but he arches up into it, and his head is thrown back in abandon. “Clint, I’m going to use you,” Phil grates out. “You’re going to let me use you.”

Clint’s body jerks with something more profound than a shudder, and Clint chokes out, “Use me, God, use that huge fucking cock in me, Phil, please,” and then lets out a rough cry when Phil plunges into him, this time with no hesitation and no stopping, just Phil shoving his way into Clint’s hot, tight body as fast as he can. Clint jerks and whines under him, whispers, “Maybe it had to be you, maybe I can’t fill my empty places without your cock,” in a dreamy kind of slur, and Phil doubles over Clint, pounding into him harder, he thinks, than he’s ever fucked anyone, and Clint’s face is blissed, his body rocking up to meet Phil’s thrusts.

“You’re so beautiful like this, Clint,” Phil murmurs. “I hope you’ll let me see you like this again.” His hips jerk out of rhythm, and Clint keens a little, and then Phil is pouring his seed into Clint’s body, his fingertips leaving bruises on Clint’s knee and bicep.

Phil doesn’t even touch Clint. He’s still coming hard when Clint’s back arches and he spurts ribbons of come across his belly, shouting in pleasure, his ass wrenching around Phil’s cock. “Clint!” Phil snarls, still spilling come into Clint’s ass, still wanting Clint just as badly as ever even as he does it.

They still almost together, and Phil pushes his arms upward so that he can kiss Clint stupid. It turns out that they have the same goal; Clint is straining upward in his bondage, tongue and lips soft and Clint just whispers out moans when Phil bites at him, his mouth staying pliant and gentle. Another thing that twists in Phil’s guts, another thing that he knows about Clint’s submission, and he has a list now, he’s making plans on how to handle Clint when Clint is really his; premature, he knows it, but he can’t help it.

He pulls carefully out of Clint. “Tighten up,” he murmurs, and Clint manages to clench his stretched out hole.

“Hurry,” Clint says.

Phil gets the belt and slides on one of the smaller plugs this time; Clint is going to be so sore. He slips the plug into Clint, manages to get the strap beneath him, and then uses his mouth to clean up Clint’s cock before he slips it into the cage.

He frees Clint carefully from the bondage hooks on the bed frame, and watches Clint pull each limb into his body, as though he wants to curl up. Phil, on impulse, rolls him onto his side and braces Clint’s body with his. Clint’s breathing slows, and Phil thinks that Clint might fall asleep again. Then Clint turns slightly, and looks up at Phil. “It was good,” he murmurs, and Phil understands by the look in Clint’s eyes that it’s a huge admission. “It was so good, Phil.”

“You were perfect,” Phil tells him. “You drive me crazy.”

Clint smirks a little. “Part of my job description. It was good to come home and have me…?” Clint asks.

“Terrifying and good,” Phil says, and runs his lips along Clint’s jaw. “You should have seen how you looked; how hard you worked to be ready for me, to keep your free hand off your cock. You were so perfect, Clint. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

Clint flushes. “I don’t know if I can every time,” he says quietly.

“We don’t have to do anything _every_ time,” Phil says. “Do what you can do. Give what you can give. If I need something particular, I’ll ask for it.”

“Do you… do you ever let your partner… top?” Clint asks.

Phil grins and Clint’s eyes go a little wide. “Yeah. I like it. I’ll show you my personal stash of toys and see what you make of them.”

Clint, wide-eyed and eager, says, “I haven’t ever…” Then cuts himself off abruptly, flushing ruddy.

“Then we’ll make sure to do it the very next time,” Phil says, refusing to let Clint think it’s a big deal. “I’d let you do it now, but I have got to sleep. Honestly, if you hadn’t already been all wrapped up sweet for me like a piece of candy, I’m not sure I would’ve woken you.”

Clint reaches up tentatively and runs his hands through Phil’s hair.

“Do you need anything from me?” Clint asks.

“Not for at least two to three hours,” Coulson says. “I should be okay for a while after that. Don’t go play with your new arrows. I want to be there for that.” He pauses. “Have you seen the gym?”

“Isn’t it in the training area?” Clint asks.

“No, it’s separate. The training area is for actual combat training. The gym is just for working out. Anyone can point it out to you. Or you can stay. Revel in your afterglow.” He’s not willing to call it subspace yet; at least not directly to Clint.

“No, I want you to sleep.” Clint brushes a thumb under Phil’s eye. “You look tired. I’ll shower and go to the gym.”

“Gym clothes bottom drawer,” Phil mumbles, and Clint rumbles soft laughter.

Phil isn’t sure how long he sleeps -- awhile, at least, enough to feel better -- when his phone rings and wakes him. “Coulson,” he answers, mouth half open in a yawn.

“Security Agent Moreau,” a deep voice greets him. “I’m going to have to ask you to come to the men’s showers off the tier one gym, sir. Your specialist has… well, he’s killed at least one agent. A couple of the others could go either way.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Phil says, already jumping into his pants.

Phil has more than mastered the art of dressing and looking immaculate in under two minutes, so he makes his deadline in plenty of time.

Security has Clint boxed into a corner; there are another four agents boxed into another corner, two of them on the ground, but alive, and one dead man, neck clearly broken, on the floor. All the agents that are boxed together show signs of having had the crap kicked out of them except for the woman. A woman’s presence in this kind of situation is unusual in and of itself.

Phil more or less guesses what had happened, and turns to Clint. “Were there more of them?” he asks.

“Three more,” Clint says. His knuckles are bloody and he has a bloody nose, but looks otherwise okay. “I can give you descriptions, but I’m betting the camera got them.

“You didn’t come in here to shower?” Phil asks. Clint wouldn’t have, with the belt on.

“No, I got here the old fashioned way; taken by surprise by a large group of Alpha males as I was walking by.”

“And what did they do?” Phil asks, because there will have to be a report, and he’ll be damned if he’s making Clint write it.

“The dead one tripped me to my knees and announced that there was going to be a ‘party’ in my pretty mouth, and he was going to be the first to attend. Then he unzipped his pants and made an effort to get me to open my mouth for him.”

“And you did what?” Phil asks, feeling taut and furious, although it’s obviously pointless; Clint is fine, had taken care of himself, but Phil still _feels_ like he should have been there.

“I refused, he pulled a gun, I became seriously irate, and took it away from him, disabled it--” He gestures at the slide, the bullets, and the grip strewn around him across the floor of the showers. “--assuming a lack of gun would derail the situation. He kicked me in the groin which I think did more damage to him than me, and claimed that he was going to fuck my mouth until I choked, and nobody was going to stop him.”

“And then you?” Phil asks.

“And then I stopped him,” Clint says, gesturing at his body. “The rest of them closed in seven-on-one; three of them made for the door when they realized that the odds were against them. The other four I kept hedged into a corner until security arrived.”

“Did they all verbally threaten to sexually assault you?” Phil asks.

“The blond in the suit skirt didn’t; she said that she was just here to ‘watch the mighty brought low,’” Clint says, his expression taut with something that Phil recognizes means _something_ , but isn’t sure what.

“What about the other three?”

“Difficult to say for sure,” Clint says. “They were all mouthing off when they dragged me in here. I’m betting the camera is your best bet for isolating who actually said what.” Clint’s face is hard as stone. “I believe I have the right to beat unconscious anyone who attempts to touch me sexually,” he says. “And the right to use lethal force if someone attempts to actually sexually abuse me. Which means me and them have a date in a cement room as soon as they’re all rounded up together again.”

Security Agent Moreau says, “Those measures are for assaults in progress. These four and the other three will be securely locked down until the camera proves your story. If things happened just as you say, disciplinary measures will be taken.”

“Disciplinary measures,” Clint says flatly.

“Chemical castration, most commonly,” Phil says, and sees some of the tension leak out of Clint. “Along with prison time in a SHIELD holding facility.”

“Where do we wait?” Clint asks.

Moreau says, “They’re reviewing the security footage as we speak.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Clint says. “They know there are cameras everywhere. They know I’m a specialist. We have to assume they are all first time offenders or they’d already be in SHIELD holding facility somewhere. And the number is all off. When you’re committing a gang rape, any kind of gang rape, you need an enclosed space so that your victim doesn’t have room to fight, and you need to have less than four or five attackers. You don’t do it in the gym showers during the middle of the day. You don’t invite all your buddies.” Clint studies the four boxed in the other corner carefully, his attention on the woman. “And if for some reason you do bring your buddies, they’re not dressed for work. Everyone else was dressed for gym time, including that dead guy. I’ll bet you dimes to donuts that she’s missing her service weapon. That the gun on the floor is hers.”

Security Agent Moreau looks thoughtful. He crosses the room and throws open her jacket; her shoulder holster is empty. She throws a vitriolic look at Clint, but still says nothing. There is something strange about her eyes, her expression, but Phil is too focused on Clint to try to decipher what it is.

Security Agents start bagging pieces of the gun.

“And check to see if they’re on something,” Clint adds, when Moreau comes back to their side of the room. “There was something wrong about them.” He looks at Phil, that look Phil can’t decipher still on his face. “She did it. I don’t know how or why, but she did something. Can we run checks on her?”

“Yes,” Moreau says. He sounds uncertain. “Nothing you’re saying sounds exactly wrong, but I can’t see how it could be exactly right, either.”

Clint shakes his head. “Neither can I,” he says. “It’s just what my gut is telling me. Phil can you up her security? There’s something not right about her. I wouldn’t want her to slip away before we can figure out what it is.”

“That can be handled,” Phil says. Clint is right. This situation is a hot mess; it doesn’t make sense all the way around.

“This is Moreau,” Moreau says, and then listens for several seconds. “Understood. Requesting special security for female agent involved; her weapon was used in the attempt. Have all suspects tested for any sort of drugs in their systems. Hold separately and observe.”

The four Security Agents boxing Clint in back away. Phil moves closer, hoping to give some kind of comfort, and is nearly shocked at the way Clint leans into him. He’s a little less shocked when Clint murmurs, “That’s Blacklight, Phil. She’s cut her hair and that’s a wig, but I never forget a face I see through a scope.” Clint’s voice is thrumming with tension.

Phil is deliberately casual when he reaches for his phone and calls in Hill and whatever specialists are on base. He explains as much as he can in as few words as possible. Moreau, overhearing at least part of it, steps away and calls for additional security teams.

There isn’t any real reason for the tension to escalate in the room, but it does. Phil keeps his eyes on Clint, who is doing a good job of looking like he isn’t looking at anything, just cleaning up his bloody nose, but Phil isn’t fooled. His eyes are narrowed in thought.

When Hill arrives, the tension ratchets upward. She, unlike Phil, had worked closely with Blacklight, and recognizes her in spite of the disguise. She’s brought a small army of assets and specialists with her, and they immediately encircle the room.

“What the hell is going on here?” Hill demands.

“Get those men away from her, Moreau,” Clint says. “They’re just potential hostages now.” Moreau orders his people back, instructing them to grab the other prisoners as well, surprising Phil a little at how readily he obeys Clint.

“Why you?” Phil wonders aloud. “She never even saw you. She’s been out since long before you came. Why would she pick you as a target, and why would she do it this way?”

“Either the money or the drive,” Clint says, but not like he believes it. “I’m the only sniper at HQ right now as far as I know; she’s got to know who to blame. But why this…? I have no idea.”

“Opportunity?” Hill asks, without taking her eyes off of Blacklight, who is swaying on her feet a little; Phil reminds himself that she’d suffered a head wound at Clint’s hands not even twenty-four hours ago. “She carries an arsenal of poison needles with a mixture of psychotropic drugs in them. If she saw Clint here, without his handler and unarmored and with no weapons, maybe she just jabbed the first few guys she came across and whipped them into a hallucinatory frenzy.”

Clint looks at Hill, dubious. 

“You don’t know what she can do,” Hill says. “I’ve seen her do things like that before.”

“So you think she was trying to break Clint to get information out of him,” Phil asks.

“Not even necessarily that,” Hill says. “Maybe just create enough of a confusing situation to jab Clint with something and get information that way.”

“But what she said,” Clint murmurs. “That she was just here to ‘see the mighty brought low.’” He shakes his head. “No, she knows me, and she knows something about me.” He looks at Phil, eyes bleak. “Not opportunity, or at least not entirely.” He doesn’t say: ‘She knew what to do to hurt me,’ but Phil hears it anyway.

Phil is inclined to agree; the situation had been too deliberate, too targeted toward Clint’s fears, for mere opportunity. And Blacklight is a specialist, too. If she’d wanted something from Clint, information or just revenge, she’d have used her abilities to have taken them. This is terrifyingly more personal. But how? How could she possibly know? And why does she care?

Clint’s chin comes up suddenly, and his eyes narrow on her face. “Hill, what’s her name? Her real name?”

“Alexandria…” Hill begins, and

“Chisolm,” Clint finishes.

Hill looks at him sharply.

Clint gives Phil a look that Phil can’t interpret. “She’s Trickshot’s daughter,” he whispers.

“We were in contact with her right up until we brought Clint in,” Phil says. “Not even a day later, she reported the contact with Glau and set up the op. She set it up. Glau never approached her. She arranged it so that she could come in. She came in for Clint. For revenge.”

“She’s been a specialist for years,” Hill says, sounding completely baffled. “You’re saying she’s been compromised all that time?”

Phil shakes his head. “The only way we can know that is if we backtrail every mission she’s ever been involved in, which we will. We have to. But I think it’s unlikely. I think she compromised herself because of Clint. Because of her father.”

“Jesus Christ,” Hill says. “What a mess. What the hell do we do with her now?”

Clint, glances at Phil with an odd, trembling smile hooked onto the corner of his mouth, and says, “Look, Coulson. It really is all about me.” But the look in his eyes is pure terror.

“We kill her,” Phil says calmly. Hill’s head snaps around in surprise.

“No matter how she did it, it was her intent to engineer several counts of sexual assault against my specialist,” Coulson says smoothly. “The penalty for that is death, either at his hands, or at mine.”

“We have to prove all this, Coulson,” Hill says. “We can’t do anything to her until we prove the connection and the intent.”

Coulson looks at Hill for a long moment, and then says, “She’s a specialist; we don’t have enough certainty of our ability to hold her to do it that way; she was already supposedly on secure medical lockdown, and managed to get her hands on her own preferred arsenal of weapons without getting caught; and it is already proven to my satisfaction,” and Phil’s gun is in his hand, feeling like an extension of his arm, like it always does, and he shoots Blacklight in the head twice. The whole room is frozen in surprise, especially Clint, who can be still like no one else Phil has ever seen.

“I never liked her,” Capiro says matter-of-factly. “She hid her real face behind Blacklight.”

“What does that even mean?” Hill asks, her gaze sharp on Phil, though she’s making no move to call Fury or any other kind of security for that matter. Clint shifts forward to stand beside and slightly in front of Phil, like he’s ready to take on the room if it becomes necessary; Phil puts a hand on his shoulder without having to look at him, trying to ease him down, and holsters his weapon.

“It means she was always Blacklight. And even the name, a dichotomy. Me, I’m Lorenzo Capiro, except in the field. Avery is Avery, unless she’s on a mission. Blacklight was always Blacklight. I didn’t even know her real name.”

“All the drama is attracted to you, Barton,” Hill says, accusatory. “Your new field name is Drama Llama.” Then she seems to hear what she just said, and puts a hand over her face. “Can we just pretend that went unsaid?” she asks.

Phil looks at Clint. 

“Definitely,” Clint says. “What if it sticks?” Clint’s face is still stark, but his voice sounds almost right, and Phil isn’t going to do anything to draw attention to the minute tremors in his hands.

“Are you going to take me into custody, Maria?” Phil asks calmly; he’s not worried. He can make his case, and he was within his rights, and the stark fear in Clint’s eyes would have been enough even if neither of the other things had been true.

“You know I’m not,” Hill says with a sigh. She shifts her gaze from Phil to Clint, and he can see her recognizing something about Clint, her gaze measuring. “You’re right; Barton’s word is enough.”

“Can I leave you to get this cleaned up, then?” Phil asks her; she’s still looking at Clint, and she’s the kind of person who misses very little; her face softens further and she gives a nod. 

Phil leads Clint back to their quarters, keeping in step the way that Clint would be doing if he wasn’t so freaked out, and then strips him down in the living room. He takes him into the bathroom and strips the belt off, and then spends long, quiet minutes scrubbing at Clint’s skin in the shower, pressing his fingertips into tense muscles, working Clint down while Clint leans against his chest and shakes, uncharacteristically pliant and silent for a long time.

“I don’t know why the hell I’m falling apart _now_ ,” Clint complains eventually, teeth chattering, shivering all over. “I was fine while she was alive in the room with me.”

“Because it’s your job to be fine at a time like that,” Phil tells him, and tips Clint’s head back to wash his hair. “It’s not your job to be fine after the daughter of the man who collared and abused you while you were fifteen tries to assassinate you in the worst way you can imagine, and you have to watch her head explode five yards away.”

“Jesus,” Clint says, and twists around to jam his face into Phil’s shoulder. “I haven’t even _thought_ about her in years, and she’s _here_? How is that, Phil, how is that even my life?” Clint shudders against Phil, pressing hard against him like he’s trying to slip into Phil’s skin. “She was still a kid, Phil, eight or nine! Tell me how she remembered what to do to scare me half to death when she was that young?”

“Were you scared when it was happening?” Phil asks.

Clint is quiet for a long moment, and then, sounding surprised, says, “No. I wasn’t scared. I was pissed off. But if she can do what Hill says she can do, the agent I killed…”

“Was a regrettable loss that I don’t give a single shit about,” Phil says. Clint pulls back enough to blink at him. “I don’t care what kind of drug cocktail they were hyped up on, I’d have killed any of them that touched you,” Phil says, his voice low and as serious as he knows how to make it.

Clint blinks at him again, and then a slow, warm flush spreads across his face. “Thanks,” he whispers. “You didn’t have to do that. You shouldn’t have to…”

Phil pulls him in close. “I told you, I’ll do anything to protect you,” Phil whispers. “It doesn’t matter to me why. Try to trust me; I know it’s hard.” And Phil does know, and can’t ask for anything more than Clint has already given him, which has honestly been more than Phil had hoped for.

Clint breathes against Phil’s chest for another couple of minutes, and Phil can tell when he’s getting himself back under control. He doesn’t draw away -- it surprises Phil, but pleases him -- he just straightens a little, and his hands, which had been hanging at his sides, move upward to cup Phil’s back, the flats of Clint’s palms cradling the wings of Phil’s shoulder blades. Phil shifts them subtly until they’re hugging; he isn’t sure Clint even knows that that’s what they’re doing. He can’t imagine when the last time Clint had been hugged might have been.

“You’re getting a tattoo today,” Phil murmurs into Clint’s cheek. “I don’t want anyone else thinking of putting their hands on you.”

Clint shivers a little. “Where?” he asks.

Phil pulls back to trace the line of Clint’s hipbone with one thumb. “Here,” he murmurs, and then slides a his hand up to Clint’s collarbone. “And my mark, here. Unless you want something else.”

“No,” Clint says, a little breathless. “Those are… fine.”

“Good. Let’s do that now,” he says, and makes sure all the soap is out of Clint’s hair before he turns off the shower.

“You didn’t sleep very long,” Clint says.

“I’m good for now,” Phil says. “Before it blew up, how was your workout?”

“Embarrassing,” Clint says sheepishly. “I drew a crowd.”

“The specialists and assets do,” Phil acknowledges. “And I know you have your own areas for working out, secluded in the valley, but I wish you’d spend at least some time out here. I want them to recognize you.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” Clint says. “Why?”

“Because you’re strange,” Phil says wryly. “You worked alone so long, you can practically do anyone’s job for them. Aside from computers, which I think you’re better at than you’re letting on, you think like all of us to some degree or another. I want them to recognize that in you; I want them to want to emulate some of it.”

Clint is looking a Phil thoughtfully. “Then you’ll need to run me on missions with them that don’t necessarily include my specialty,” Clint says. “Slot me into intel, tactical, even leadership roles.”

Phil nods. “This thing with the submissives is going to push us, right now, but yes. Eventually.” He smirks a little. “Fury talked about having you work with small groups of agents, assets, and specialists about your thought processes during your first mission.”

Clint looks scandalized. “ _Fury_ brought it up?”

Phil nods, and brushes his lips across Clint’s lightly. “Fury knows a good thing when it sasses him. He still doesn’t understand you, but he’s clear on your… quality, as a SHIELD Agent, Specialist, Asset, Analyst, Spy, Tactician, Provider of Intel. I think he wishes he could clone you, sans the smart mouth.”

Clint smirks. “I wouldn’t be the same without the smart mouth, sir,” he says.

They dry off and Clint has a brief argument with Phil over the armor, which Phil wins by sheer dint of being the boss. “I want you in it,” he says. “I want them to see you in it. If things change, I want them to see the other specialists geared up. I want more interaction. I want more cross-departmental cooperation. By the time the rest of that happens, they’ll be used to seeing you. You’ll be one of them.”

Clint sighs. “All right, I’ll be your agent zero, but I’m not wearing the exterior leg armor,” he says.

“Fair,” Phil says. 

“Say, do you bake?” Clint asks.

“Once, and only once, I will bake for the Valkyries for you,” Phil says. “I’ll walk you through it every time you want to learn something new, but I will only actually do it for you one time.”

Clint gives him a bashful smile. “Fair,” he says.

“Belt?” Clint asks, one brow cocked, his expression neither encouraging nor discouraging.

“It’ll get in the way of the tattoo,” Phil says. “And you’ll be with me.”

Clint just nods.

Tattooing happens in what Phil thinks of as a tattoo parlor, even though it’s actually in a suite in medical. Largely, that has to do with the fact that it looks like a tattoo parlor inside. Big lamps, artwork everywhere, heavily decorated artists. Phil likes it here. While Clint is getting his hipbone mark, Phil intends to have Clint’s mark inked onto him. It isn’t something he always does. He’d done it with his first specialist, a robin’s red breast feather sketched lightly onto his shoulder blade. He’d been young, and had expected it to be something… he isn’t sure. He doesn’t know what he’d been looking for. But whatever it had been, he hadn’t found it, and he hasn’t been tattooed again.

This time… well, he thinks this time he’s found it. What’s more, even if he doesn’t get to keep whatever this is, he thinks he will want to keep the mark. He doesn’t let himself second guess the desire.

Phil introduces Clint to Yovic and Sabine, the two artists, and talk about what they want to do. While Sabine is in conversation with Clint about it, Phil pulls Yovic to the side, and doesn’t even have to say anything. Yovic says, “You know what you want?” his gaze steady on Phil’s, and Phil nods. “We will put you on the table while he’s already down,” he says, and Phil nods again.

Clint is down to his pants when Phil makes his way into the alcove with one of the two tattooing benches in it. “Yinchen?” Sabine asks -- Phil’s mark has always been the same -- and he shakes his head, trying not to look at Clint. Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t indicate in any other way that she’s surprised, and the three of them have a slightly meandering conversation of what kind of mark Phil wants to leave on Clint’s body. Customarily it’s a significant symbol. Phil’s has always been his name in sanskrit. Less frequently, a handler will choose something a little less routine. Phil has no idea what he wants, except that he can’t stand the idea of Clint being routine.

“Do you want my name on you?” Phil asks Clint, when Sabine has left the room to flip through portfolios for ideas.

“I thought that was the deal,” Clint says, his face open enough that Phil is sure he isn’t harboring ill feelings about it being the deal.

“It can be. It can be anything that means me, if you don’t want to walk around for the rest of your life with my name obviously inked onto your chest.”

Clint blushes. “That’s okay with me, actually,” he says, and Phil feels a little like he’s been punched in the chest in a way that’s unexpectedly good. “Sabine said it couldn’t be obvious,” he says. “Like it would have to be a dead language, or inked into a design.” Clint’s hand slips down to touch his bow for a second, apparently unaware, maybe just checking on its presence, and Phil thinks about his own image and tries not to let his imagination run away with him.

“What about your bow?” Phil asks carefully. “Sabine is an artist. She can interweave my name into the design so that no one who didn’t know it was there would ever see it.”

Clint’s hand closes firmly around his bow this time, and he smiles a little. He glances at Phil from under his lashes -- and Phil will have to remember that he apparently has no ability to resist Clint looking at him like that -- and says, “If you don’t mind? That it’s a symbol for me, too?”

Phil shakes his head, throat a little tight.

When Sabine returns, they explain what they want, and she has Clint snap his bow out to full extension and hold it for her for long minutes, while she draws a small but nearly perfect copy, and then while she draws another, even better. She lets him put it away, and then spends at least twenty minutes experimenting with Phil’s name on trace paper, working the letters into the body of the bow, the changes so minute that only someone who knew the bow as well as Clint does would even see them.

She shows him three different drafts in three different styles, and Clint picks the one that changes the image of the bow the most, to Phil’s surprise, even though the changes are still almost invisible.

“And the standard hipbone?” Sabine asks. 

“It may run long,” Phil says. He reaches around Clint’s neck and unlocks his collar, and then spills the discs into a microreader. “He works fast.” Sabine’s brows rise a little, but she nods her understanding.

“The bow first,” she decides. “Far more intricate, but better to get his endorphins flowing before we tackle the rest.”

“You okay in here while I go talk to Yovic?” Phil asks Clint, and Clint nods absently while he and Sabine talk about the blocking on his skin.

Phil slips out of the alcove and into Yovic’s. He already has the table ready for Phil, and he asks only, “Where?”

Phil takes off his jacket and rolls up his left sleeve, indicating the inside of his left wrist. Yovic’s brows rise. “I know,” Phil says. “But that’s where.”

“Tell me,” Yovic says.

“A hawk eye,” Phil says. “Single, as close to scale as you can get it without it being too small to see. Close view.”

Humming a little, Yovic turns to his computer, tapping at it for a while. “Lots of distinctive markings in the feathers just around the eye,” he says.

“Deadliest species, then,” Phil says, and Yovic flips through a few more pictures, enlarges one so that it fills the screen, and then swabs Phil’s wrist. He mixes inks, referring to the image often, and then sets the bottles up in an orderly line.

Phil almost bites through his lip at the first touch of the needle against the thin skin of the underside of his wrist, and it takes a long time for it to become numb enough for Phil to relax enough to ask, “Which hawk?”

“Red tailed,” Yovic says, and wipes away the blood trailing down Phil’s arm toward his elbow.

Yovic only uses straight needles, even for coloring, so it takes a long time, but Phil doesn’t mind. It inks Clint deeply under his skin, and unless he’s ever injured there, it will last forever.

Yovic bandages it when it’s done. “It’s deep. Cover for today, but let it breathe overnight. Cover any time your cuff might rub at it, but always give it ten hours a day to breathe until it heals.” He gives Phil a serious look. “This won’t be like the feather, Coulson,” he says. “It will never fade.”

Phil nods. “That’s the point,” he says. Yovic looks pleased.

When Phil is back on his feet steadily enough, he goes to check on Clint, who is absolutely hazy-eyed with endorphins. He smiles at Phil, soft and sweet, and whispers, “Come see the bow, Phil.” Phil isn’t sure why Clint feels the need to whisper, but is willing to humor him.

Sabine is inking encryption into Clint’s hipbone -- she’s already run out of room above, and has started in below -- and doesn’t pause while Phil works his way carefully around her to examine the bow, which stretches from one end of Clint’s collarbone to the other, and is beautifully, meticulously done. Phil picks out the letters of his name worked into it, and heat rolls in his belly. When he glances up at Clint, that same heat is rolling in his eyes.

“You’re so high on endorphins,” Phil murmurs softly.

“He dropped into it like a stone,” Sabine says mildly. She flicks her eyes at Clint’s groin, and Phil bites down on a laugh. His pants are tugged partway down to give her room to work, and the Valkyries’ underwear are less than completely modest under the circumstances. “Some of these, I had to make up on the fly,” she says. “I’ll list them down, but I doubt I’ll be using ‘killed the gila rooster’ again. I think it’s the first time I’ve used ‘perfect mission zero.’ She sounds thoughtful. “And I’ve never inked Fury’s clearance code onto anyone but Fury. I marked it temporary; he said it was.”

“Potentially long term, but currently temporary, yes,” Phil agrees.

“I’m almost done here. He’s got some space, but if he keeps it up, the next time he comes in, I’ll have to shave to make room.” She shoots a grin at Phil. “I’ve seen twenty year agents that don’t have these kinds of markings. He must be something.”

“I think so,” Phil says honestly. He sees her eyeing the curve of bandage peeking out from under his cuff, but doesn’t mention it.

“Just another minute,” she says. “Hill called to add ‘neutralized compromised agent’ to the list. She said she’d have the disc ready for you whenever you want it.”

Phil nods and waits, watching her flawlessly carve information into Clint’s skin, while occasionally checking Clint’s face, eyes half closed, lips curled up contentedly.

“He is so not going to be happy when the endorphins let go,” Sabine says, and holsters her gun. She blots blood away from the lines of encryption she’s just finished. “Thank God for SHIELD’s advanced medical treatment.”

She cleans both tattoos thoroughly, and then sprays a liquid bandage over the tops of them. She caps them off with regular bandages, as well, but Phil knows the liquid bandage will come home with them, and they’ll start using it as soon as they can stand the touch of fabric against their skin again. It will increase the healing factor of the tattoo by at least three times the normal rate.

“Remember, lots of air, even with the liquid bandage,” she tells Phil. “And the bow is deep, a lot of blackwork. I think he’s going to have to use real bandages on it under his clothes for an extra day at least, but otherwise encourage him to run around shirtless. Moisturize, of course.” She adds things to a little bag. “And the first set of bandages stay on for at least twelve hours,” she scolds. Her eyes ask him if he needs anything else, darting down to Phil’s wrist.

“Wrap around gauze,” he says. “Tape. Enough liquid bandage to cover everything.”

She adds things to the bag.

“That bow is one of the most elegant pieces I’ve ever done,” she says wistfully. “It sucks that it’s classified.”

“Now that he’s had a taste, he may develop a fancy,” Phil says, being mostly serious. “Maybe he’ll let you handle something for your portfolio.”

She smiles, but just shrugs a little. “It would be great if he did, but honestly, I’m not going anywhere. My portfolio is more of a hobby than anything else. And it’s in his file, of course, and yours, so it’s not like I can never look at it again.” She glances over at Clint, who might actually be sleeping now. She quirks an eye at Phil. “At this point, he’s your problem,” she says, and winks.

“I’ll just mark this down as poor customer service on the survey, then?” Phil asks, and she snorts at him and slips out of the alcove.

“Clint,” Phil murmurs, curling his hand around Clint’s shoulder and shaking him lightly. “You’re all marked up. Time to go.”

Clint’s eyelashes flutter, and he glances down at his bandages, looking a little puzzled. “That was… fast?”

“We’ve been here three hours,” Phil says. “You fell asleep.”

Clint’s eyebrows scrunch into a frown, and then he smiles abruptly, and says, “Did you see it?” His fingertips hover over the bandage on his chest.

“I saw it,” Phil assures him. “It’s gorgeous.”

Clint glances down at the bandage on his hip. “Well, shit,” he says. “I have no idea what that even looks like.” He sounds disgusted.

“Not anywhere near as gorgeous,” Phil says. “But entertaining reading.” Phil gathers together all the discs and threads them back onto Clint’s collar. He pauses, but Clint is still hazy eyed, and is looking at Phil, puzzled. “Do you want to lock it,” Phil asks, his voice absolutely neutral.

Clint looks at him for so long that Phil can feel the neutrality draining out of his expression, knows what’s replacing it. Clint looks away, finally, licking his lips, and takes the ends of the collar from Phil’s hands and locks it around his throat.

Phil refuses to be disappointed. He wants it badly, but he can’t quite bring himself to feel cheated. It had been close. Clint’s face hadn’t been open enough for Phil to really _see_ , but he still knows. Phil can’t think of it as a ‘no;’ he thinks of it as a ‘not yet.’ And that’s enough. He can wait.

Clint sits up and swings his legs over the side of the table, and then winces, pulling in the whole left side of his body. He catches himself and straightens up, and Phil can see Clint flexing and moving slightly, gauging to see if he’s in fighting shape. “How long?” he finally asks.

“It’ll be bad enough to hamper you in a fight for at least a day,” Phil says. “Not seriously, but if you were to take a direct blow to one of them, it would probably cause you some serious pain. Your hip should be better than your chest. It’s in a painful spot, but it’s basically line work, whereas the bow is dense needlework.”

“What about the armor?” Clint asks, and it’s a good question. 

“The bandages won’t come off for the first twelve hours,” Phil says. “We’ll have to let them air out at night. Sabine thinks you may need real bandages on the bow for at least an extra day, when usually we’d go with a liquid bandage after just the first. As for the armor, I think you might be better off with it than without it. It’s snug enough not to rub. So until the real bandages come off, the armor is probably good. After, you’ll want to be in something a little looser until it’s completely healed. I’m to encourage you to go shirtless whenever you’re not in public.”

Clint smirks. “Okay, help me get the vest on.” He hops down off the table and carefully draws up his pants, breathing out a little sound of relief when he gets them buttoned and finds that the tattoos are below the waistband, not rubbing up against it. He manfully doesn’t wince while Phil helps him on with the vest, tugging it carefully snug over the bandages and fastening it up. He reaches for his bow with his right hand, and only winces a little. “Man, if i have to shoot any time soon, I’m going to be deeply unhappy.”

“I have faith in you,” Phil says, lips twitching. 

“Yeah, laugh it up…” Clint doesn’t finish the sentence because he’s caught sight of the bandage under Phil’s cuff. Phil is prepared to be pestered to death, but Clint only looks at him and asks, “When can I see it?”

“Tonight,” Phil says. “My bandages have to come off every twelve hours, too. How does the vest feel?”

Clint flexes his shoulders a little, and then shrugs. “Okay. It doesn’t slide around much usually, so unless it starts to rub at the bandages, I’ll probably do alright.”

Clint freezes for an instant, and then his whole face falls. “I was supposed to get to play with my exploding ammunition today!” he says plaintively. “Damn it, Phil!”

Phil manages to keep from laughing through sheer force of will. “They aren’t going anywhere, Clint,” he says. “And you aren’t going anywhere. And for at least part of the day, you’re going to have to interrogate the pirate king.”

“Hale is coming here?” Clint asks, apparently all astonishment.

“He won’t talk to anyone but you,” Phil says.

“He hates me,” Clint says, with a puzzled expression.

Phil shrugs. “Nevertheless.”

They fall into step outside of Medical, and Phil says, “I need to get back to the war room. There may not be anything to do there yet; the ball is rolling, but there’s no telling how quickly it will roll. You’re welcome if you want to be there, but if you want some space, I know the specialists have places they go.”

“No, yeah,” Clint says, stretching a little as he walks. “Something I wanted to ask you about that, actually.”

“Shoot,” Phil says. 

“There were a lot of us in,” Clint says. “More than I expected. I realize we don’t all have the same skills, but at least some us have to have the kind of tracking, survival, and spying skills necessary to physically follow any large scale movements of submissives.”

“Already on it,” Phil says. “We sent out well over three hundred specialists and assets last night, as well as recalling some that are particularly good at that kind of thing.”

Clint says nothing, and Phil glances at him. He looks a little dumbfounded. “How… how many of us are there?” he finally asks.

“Globally?” Phil asks. “And just specialists and assets, not Agents or other ancillary personnel?”

Clint nods.

“At least two thousand,” Phil says, and watches the shock roll over Clint’s face. “Less, if you’re asking about actual submissives, not switches or cross-trained dominants, but right around there.”

“How is that even possible?” Clint wonders aloud.

“We’re everywhere,” Phil says. “That’s one of the reasons this thing with the submissives vanishing has been so hard for us to get a handle on. Anything else in the world, we know it as soon as it happens. But this…” He shakes his head. “Latveria is isolated enough that keeping operatives active in it is difficult, and Von Doom has been troublesome in the past, but he’s never required our degree of intervention. And Hydra… We should have started checking Hydra first,” he sighs. “They’re the only organization we can’t keep a toe-hold in. There’s no excuse except that it just didn’t happen quickly enough for it to really draw our attention. By the time it had, the evidence was effectively gone; Hydra would’ve hidden them away from sight already from all our external sources of information.”

Clint clicks his tongue thoughtfully. “I’ll go with you,” he says. “Maybe whatever information you managed to get after I went to bed will give me something to work with.”

Fury is the only one in the war room already when Clint and Phil arrive. He is working on Maxwell’s computer, slowly scrolling through information. There are new maps and graphs and charts projected on the video screens and walls, which Clint takes his time going over. He sees where Fury has managed to add pirate ports, and doesn’t ask where Fury had gotten the information. 

Known Hydra strongholds are marked with red H’s, and he lets his eyes rove over them for a long while, tracing out possible routes between ports and bases. He stops in front of Nicaragua, where a base is tagged with a yellow H, and says, “Is this presumed Hydra?”

“We got a little intel from a few of the specialists already in the area,” Fury says, coming to stand beside him. “We’re sure there are submissive captives there, but the base isn’t one we’ve seen before, so we tagged it as probably Hydra. Why?”

“I’ve been in this base,” Clint says. “It’s AIM.”

Fury turns a surprised look on him. “You’ve been inside an AIM complex?”

“Twice,” Clint says. His eyes are skipping over the map. He finds another yellow H, and taps it. “AIM.”

“And who were you taking out in AIM?” Fury wants to know, sounding genuinely curious.

“Exxus and Erebrus London,” Clint says, and grins a little at Fury’s expression.

“That was you?” Fury demands; Clint just looks smug.

Phil gets on the phone with Analytics and requests all their information on AIM be transferred to the war room. 

Fury is right to be surprised. AIM is smaller than Hydra, and crazier in the classical sense, as in they do crazy things all the time; they’re an organization of geniuses, and so erratic that SHIELD has had trouble in the past with them just because they’re hard to anticipate in their craziness.

Phil changes out the yellow H’s for white A’s while he waits to pull up what they have on AIM’s locations and movements so that he can mark them on the map. Phil thinks it’s kind of reassuring, that they know or suspect so many Hydra locations at the same time that it’s kind of depressing, because the World Council won’t let them take direct action against Hydra without Hydra making a move first, and even then, it’s on a one-on-one basis. If they know one Hydra location is receiving potentially dangerous weaponry (on a large scale; the World Council is fine with permitting each Hydra agent individually to have at least five guns, and small scale missile arrays aren’t likely to cause much more than a raised eyebrow), SHIELD can move on it. 

On the one hand, even the World Council can’t stop SHIELD from moving against every known or suspected Hydra location, if it turns out they have kidnapped submissives in their possession. On the other hand, they have to prove it for a large scale assault.

Not that Phil thinks that Fury will wait one second longer than it takes for him and _only_ him to be, not even certain, but more like ‘close enough to mostly sure’ before he mobilizes SHIELD en masse. 

He’s already recalled and reassigned a truly scary number of personnel, in a very careful, very low key way that isn’t likely to alarm anyone unless they’re paying very close attention. 

It’s wrong, but Phil would love to take this excuse to wipe Hydra off the map entirely. The submissives’ safety has to be the priority, but Phil is really hoping they get a chance to really grind Hydra down. He feels sure that everyone whose opinions he cares about feels the same way.

“AIM,” Fury mutters, disgusted. “Like this needed to be more complicated.”

“This is actually a good thing,” Clint says. “AIM is like herding cats. If they’re involved, there’s every chance that everyone else is being slowed down by them.”

“Except for the way that they’re completely crazy, I’d agree with you,” Fury says, and watches Phil pin white A’s to the board. Several of them come up near the little cut out people they’ve been using to represent submissives end-point journeys. There are only a few of these, reported from specialists and agents in the field, but a few is more than they’d had before. It makes sense if AIM is getting their submissives last; the trails would have been fresher.

“I wonder who’s really in charge,” Phil muses. “We’ve all been assuming Von Doom, because the evidence suggests that he started the whole thing, but with the addition of Hydra, who don’t take orders from anyone, and AIM, who’ll take orders as long as something doesn’t distract them, it seems like there almost has to be a fourth player.” The idea has been spinning in the back of his head since they’d linked Von Doom with Hydra, which is not an impossible pairing, but is an unlikely one. It’s just enough to give Phil the feeling that something else might be going on, and AIM’s involvement only makes that feeling stronger.

Fury says, “Hydra is the strongest of them, discounting the submissive armies, but if they had constructed the plan to begin with they’d have made sure they were armed first. Von Doom has a strong power base, and he likes to make the ‘big-splash’ kind of trouble, but while I can see him being willing to take years to implement a plan that was big enough for him, I have a hard time thinking that he’d actually come up with that plan himself.” 

“And AIM is just crazy,” Clint says. “The only reason to include them in any kind of long term plot would be because they provided some specific thing the plan needed to succeed.”

Phil has a flash of insight so powerful that he sits down into a chair abruptly. “There is a fourth man,” he blurts. “Fuck, fuck.” Clint’s brows rise in surprise. “Someone else on the board, of course there is, I can’t believe I didn’t recognize his fucking style.” Clint and Fury both raise their eyebrows this time, exchanging looks (the two of them exchanging looks would be funny in other circumstances, but Phil is too busy being enraged). Phil fucking _hates_ the Mandarin. “The long game, all the players ranged across the board. He’s playing with us. There’s a decent chance that the other three don’t even know about each other’s submissive armies. This is exactly the kind of chaotic situation that he loves to set up, ever so careful not to let it be traced back to him in any way, and then just tip things into motion and watch the world burn.”

“The Mandarin,” Fury says grimly.

Phil snaps one of the little AIM flags he’d been holding in half accidentally; he’s aware of Clint watching him warily, but is too irate to worry about it overly.

“I don’t know who that is,” Clint says.

Fury claps him on the shoulder. “I’m relieved to hear that there’s something, at least, that you don’t know anything about, Barton. Makes me feel less like choking you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Clint says drily.

“But Von Doom has to know about at least some of it,” Fury says. “All the people we have been able to track lead straight to him.”

“Yes, but only the first few years,” Phil says. “After that, Maxwell even said, they were going everywhere. Von Doom had nothing to do with it, we just assumed he’d started it. It was the fucking Mandarin. Ten Rings could have easily contacted each organization individually and made them an offer, waiting until each previous little army was already established. Hydra wouldn’t take orders from him, but they’d take suggestions, if he gave them a good enough reason.”

“AIM would have to be last on his list,” Clint says. “They’re too unpredictable. They’re the last to get subs, but won’t have the patience to wait to use them. They’ll be the ones that set things off.”

Phil says, “And if he promised Von Doom a big enough payoff, he’s the most likely to be willing and able to wait the longest to use what he has. It takes a lot of resources to hold that many people, feed, clothe, train, guard, all of that. Latveria is a rich country. They could afford it. Hydra would be willing to do it for a while, a few years; they have resources, and if they think the payoff will be worth it…”

“What’s the payoff?” Clint asks. “I mean, I get that for this Mandarin guy, it’s just for the whacky fun of it, but what about for the serious hitters.”

“SHIELD,” Phil says. “We’re the payoff. It’s the only thing all three of them have in common really. He must have realized that as we lost our submissives, SHIELD’s strength would begin to falter. Any of them would take that as an incentive. He promised them a weakened SHIELD, one that they could use our own submissives against. And he’s barely wrong. If any of them attempt an attack, how many of us are going to be willing to fire on kidnapped submissive hostages?”

“Will they fight? The subs, I mean?” Clint asks.

Phil shakes his head. “They’ve had some of them for a decade,” he says. “Some of them won’t know what else to do. Hydra, at least, will have tried to indoctrinate as many of the men as they possibly can. Von Doom is too paranoid to let his army of submissives just have the run of the place. They’ll be sequestered, and I think are the least likely to have had to deal with any attempts at reprogramming. In the love or fear question, Von Doom deals in fear.”

“Find out when AIM started getting submissives,” Fury says calmly, to an analyst that has just walked into the room and clearly has no idea what’s going on. “Get everybody back in here.”

“We can take them back from Von Doom,” Clint says thoughtfully. “They don’t belong to him, and they know they don’t belong to him. They’re the most likely to be successfully rescued, psychologically. Then, if we get just a little bit of a break, we can use them to help us get the rest of them back.”

“If they’re in any shape to do it,” Fury says.

Clint shakes his head. “If they know what’s going on, if we’re straight with them, it doesn’t matter what kind of shape they’re in. If he’s had them between five and ten years and he’s trying to build an army, they’ll be combat trained and healthy. If they understand what we’re asking, they’ll do it.” Phil thinks Clint is probably right, though Fury doesn’t look convinced; but Fury doesn’t understand Clint’s perspective the way that Phil does. “I have no idea what AIM might be doing to them, but if I had to hazard a guess, it would be something chemically based. They should be the easiest to physically rescue, because any kind of drug will make them less likely to be effective. Especially if AIM hasn’t had them long, hasn’t had time to train them or get them hooked on anything.”

“Hydra is the problem,” Phil says. “They don’t recruit women, and ideologically, they won’t recruit the male submissives either, but they’ll probably make the men _think_ they’re being allowed into the organization. And with the masks.” Phil shakes his head.

Clint slumps into a chair. “I think I know how to tell an agent of Hydra from a submissive under Hydra’s control,” he says. He looks pale when he looks at Phil. “The agents in Norway. Slightly different masks. Different enough that an actual Hydra agent would be able to identify one of the outsiders they’re letting in. The unmarked uniforms.” He doesn’t look guilty, but there is something aching in his eyes.

“But that’s good for us,” Phil says gently. “It means we know who to kill and who not to kill, Clint.”

Clint nods, but his face is still tight. “They’ll have the women in the uniforms, too,” he says finally. “Just to confuse things.”

Fury says, “But Hydra won’t take the chance that their stolen army will turn against them. They will have some way to render them all helpless or dead if that happens.”

Phil can’t argue the logic.

“I need to think,” Phil says, and stands up, pacing around the table, aware of Clint and Fury watching him, but ignoring it. Pacing is unusual for him, he knows that, but he’s knotted up, his brain in overdrive as he makes and discards half a dozen plans. Phil fucking _hates_ the Mandarin. “We can’t take any of them back now,” he mutters. “Not even from AIM. If the Mandarin sees his plans coming apart, he’ll just nudge the other two into action early. Until we find the rest of the subs, it’s a waiting game.”

Phil is usually good at waiting games. Usually, though, this many lives don’t depend on his ability to wait.

Fury, giving him a long look, says, “Take a break.” Phil gives him a veiled hostile look, but it doesn’t affect Fury. It never has. “Seriously, get out of here. We’ll continue to get reports, we’ll update what we know, but there’s only one plan, really. We go in force and we take them back. Everything else is peripheral. I’ll have Logistics concentrate on Hydra, on how to neutralize anything we can think of that they might be using to control the submissives they’ve got, but you need to walk away for awhile. Go check in with the assets. That always settles you down.”

Phil takes a deep breath. He’d like to object, but Fury isn’t wrong. Without more information, they’re gridlocked, and while he doesn’t have a lot of faith in Logistics figuring out how Hydra might be keeping submissives under control, he does have faith that one of them -- Phil, Fury, Hill, even Clint -- might be able to come up with something. And even if they don’t, he has to believe that it’ll become obvious once they actually move against Hydra. Whether or not they’ll be able to do anything to mitigate that once it becomes clear is uncertain, but they aren’t really teeming with options.

“Okay,” Phil says, breathing out heavily. “Call me when you know anything.”

“You know I will,” Fury says reasonably, and Phil can tell he’s edgy because Fury’s reasonable voice gets his back up.

“Come on,” Phil tells Clint, who is watching the exchange silently but thoughtfully.

Clint gets up without a word and follows him out the door.


	9. Chapter 9

Clint expects Coulson to lead them to either the training area or the range, which are the only two ways he knows to get to the asset’s training areas. Instead, Coulson leads them back to their quarters, where he strips out of his suit, every movement telegraphing the kind of taut impatience that Coulson _never_ telegraphs, and if Clint had to name whatever is lurking in the back of his brain and in the pit of his stomach, he would say it’s worry bordering on alarm.

Coulson strips down in an entirely unsexy way and then scrapes the clothes in their closet all the way to one side so that he can reach into the back corner. He pulls out a uniform, except not exactly a uniform. Definitely not the standard SHIELD uniform, though it’s done in the same colors.

This one consists of navy pants that have a tactical look to them, except without all the pockets, or without, Clint sees, any pockets at all. They’re of some kind of canvas-mesh material that Clint can’t identify, and though they are snug when Coulson pulls them on, they’re not really tight.

He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls on black athletic socks and a pair of boots that _look_ like combat boots, but are clearly a lot more flexible, a lot of give and bend to the material as he laces them up, and then pulls a strip of leather over the laces and snaps it in place, Clint presumes to avoid having the laces used against him. He stands up and shakes out a shirt that is made of the same material as the pants, but Clint can see the flex of armor underneath the canvas-mesh fabric, chest and belly and ribs. Once he sees it, he looks for it and finds it in the pants, too, not like Clint’s, protecting major arteries and vulnerable spots like the backs of his knees, but in the thighs, knees, and calves, the armor slim enough to be almost invisible. Coulson undoes several tiny hooks that make the front of the shirt fold open, and slips his arms into it. When it’s hooked closed again, the fastenings run diagonally up his chest.

Coulson absently tucks the shirt into the pants, and slides a belt off the hook part of the hanger. It’s not a belt for belt loops, of which the pants have none; he merely clips it into place around his waist with a buckle in the front, and then does something to lock the buckle in place, again, presumably so that it can’t be used against him. There are several slim pouches all along the length of the belt, none of them bulky enough to hold anything larger than a very slender knife. Clint can’t guess their purpose.

The shirt is short sleeved, which leaves Coulson’s biceps and forearms disconcertingly bare, and Clint finds himself staring at them, and realizes that he’s seen Coulson naked half a dozen times at least, and hasn’t taken the time to look beyond the most obvious of things, like the width of his shoulders or the slabs of muscle under the skin of his chest and back.

Coulson is by no means a big guy; he’s tall, a little taller than Clint, but he’s built longer, not quite rangy, but not really slim either.

He looks bigger in the uniform. Some of that may be the armor, but some of it, Clint is pretty sure, is just the fact that Clint is really paying attention for the first time.

It seems a little late in the game to discover that Coulson does it for him, physically, that Clint likes the way he looks, likes the faint six pack the armored shirt is currently covering, likes the lean pull of muscle in his forearms and the surprisingly deep curve of his biceps. He’s abruptly assaulted with the memory of the sharp cuts of Coulson’s hipbones and the slab of muscle that leads to his groin, the swell of his pectorals, which don’t compare to Clint’s, but clearly indicate a guy that takes care of himself.

Clint is almost embarrassed to realize that he’s been thinking of Coulson as a suit. Not a helpless suit, by any means, but not as a fighter, not really, even though he knows for a fact that all agents are combat trained, that Coulson had been (Is? Is that something that ever gets revoked?) a field agent himself, and that Clint had already known that Coulson had been in the Marines at some point. He thinks about the strength and skill it would’ve taken to muscle a guy of Clint’s bulk not only out of the bar and into a car, but up to the safe house itself, and feels stupid.

Coulson pulls on a pair of gloves; the knuckles are either padded or weighted, and Coulson moves so easily in them that Clint can’t tell which.

He throws on his shoulder holster, but Clint suspects that it has more to do with Coulson never going anywhere unarmed than it does that he thinks he’ll need it.

The whole time, Coulson’s face is both blank and grim at the same time, and Clint feels the almost overwhelming need to do something about it, coax out one of Coulson’s small, rare smiles, just ease it in some way.

“That is not your field armor,” is all Clint can think to say, and he’s surprised to see the slight curl of Coulson’s lips because he hadn’t expected that, out of all the things he might have said, to get a response.

“No,” Coulson says. “This is just my workout gear.”

Clint attempts not to look surprised, and is pretty sure he fails.

“Come on,” Coulson says, and this time leads them to the training area. Several of the assets working on the mats look up and see them coming, and stop what they’re doing. After several seconds, they turn toward the halls that lead to the asset’s areas and they sprint in that direction. The specialists look amused, but that doesn’t tell Clint anything.

“What exactly are we doing?” Clint asks as Coulson leads him through the maze of corridors.

“Taking a break,” Coulson says, and stops in front of an unmarked door. Incongruously, he knocks.

The door opens immediately, and the asset who had opened it, a broad-shouldered Latino man dressed in armor that is only superficially different than Coulson’s own, is grinning with manic delight. He steps aside, and there are several more assets in the room dressed in variations of what Coulson is wearing. They all look fiercely delighted to see Coulson in a way that makes Clint feel like he genuinely has no idea what’s going on.

There are eleven assets in the room, many of them doing deliberate stretches to warm up. The room is long and almost empty, the floor entirely matted, gym-style, with only a few pieces of furniture and no workout equipment that Clint can see.

“Where are the rest of you?” Coulson asks.

“Suiting up,” the Latino man answers. “Shouldn’t be long. How’s it going?”

“Aggravatingly,” Coulson says, and the man’s smile inexplicably widens.

“Start you off?” the man asks, and Coulson gives a sharp jerk of his chin, and the guy lunges for Coulson.

Clint doesn’t even think. He inserts himself between the man and Coulson, one arm rocked back, and swings broadly enough to not only take the man off his feet, but to send him sailing three feet across the room, landing on his back with a groan.

Coulson’s hand lights briefly on Clint’s shoulder just as Clint steps forward to go after him, and Clint eases back obediently, blood still rushing in his ears.

“Agents, this is my specialist, Clint Barton.” Coulson circles around Clint to help the Latino man to his feet. “It seems I should have been a little more clear about what was going to be happening before I invited him,” he says ruefully.

The Latino man flexes his jaw as he climbs to his feet, but the grin he gives Clint is easy, blameless. “Nice hit,” he says.

“Clint, this is Paolo Ortiz, one of our assets.” He turns back to Clint “I didn’t mean to take you by surprise.” He is smiling at Clint, almost a real smile. “I train with the assets regularly. I’m more than a match for most of the agents, though sometimes they indulge me, but I’m not a match for most of the specialists. So I come here.”

Clint can’t tell what’s showing on his face. Whatever it is, it gentles Coulson’s smile a little. “Do you think you can contain yourself?” he asks, apparently genuinely.

Clint has to really think about the question. The thought of anyone laying hands on Coulson makes him feel the bone deep itch to kill, something that he rarely feels, even on the job. The marks are marks, and Clint usually doesn’t have anything against them personally. This is different, and it’s different enough to shake him a little; he pushes it aside to think about when he isn’t surrounded by people.

He looks around the room and finds a bench close enough to the middle of the open area that he can intervene if necessary, and forces himself to settle down on it. “I can’t vouch for it if one of them really hurts you,” he says honestly, and thinks about the _crack crack_ of Coulson’s sidearm echoing in the gym showers.

Coulson’s eyes are warm, though his smile is merely a twitch of his lips again. “You forgot,” he says, and Clint doesn’t need clarification.

“It’s more like I never thought about it,” Clint admits. “You’re the brains. I knew, but it never really crossed my mind as something you actually _do_.”

“Promise me that if you feel like you have to intervene, you won’t kill anyone,” Coulson says, and hands Clint his shoulder holster to hold for him.

Clint lets out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. “I can do that.”

Coulson turns to Ortiz. “Sorry about that,” he says.

“Coulson, sir, not a single one of us is going to object to you having somebody to watch your back.” He’s smiling when he says it, but it still rings with sincerity. A few of the other assets murmur quiet agreement.

“Okay, so we’ll do this with a little more structure than usual, for Clint’s sake,” Coulson says, and walks to the center of the room. “Three at a time, for now, and if I catch you on the floor, I’m going to break your fingers.” He sounds perfectly serious. “Who’s up?”

Ortiz steps forward, along with a taller man with a neatly trimmed goatee and a shorter, bulky man of about Clint’s build. They’re all wearing gloves; Clint still isn’t sure, but he suspects they’re weighted, not padded.

This, all of this, is too serious for padded gloves, in spite of the anticipatory grins on the assets’ faces.

Clint watches, trying to get his heart to stop pounding and his shoulders and neck to relax. Maybe he should have known this about Coulson, but he hadn’t, and he’s still too surprised to feel like Coulson is really safe, and the idea of Coulson not being _safe_ makes his pulse throb in his temples for reasons that Clint is too tight and agitated… and, and, too, just, _surprised by,_ to consider.

Coulson disabuses him of the notion that he can’t handle himself in the first fifteen seconds. Ortiz and goatee charge him, one from each side, and Coulson ducks away from Ortiz and uses his own momentum to shove him into the bulky man, who had been trying to flank Coulson while he was distracted. Coulson plants a foot in the chest of goatee, sending him windmilling backward, and then twitches left slightly, avoiding a punch from behind from the bulky guy. He sends an elbow back into his solar plexus and then sweeps low with one foot, sending him to the ground at the same time that he catches Ortiz’s fist, coming at his face, with both hands, and twists it sharply, sending Ortiz spinning to the ground, though he’s on his feet again in only a moment. 

The bulky guy is levering himself upward, eyes darting around the fight, waiting for goatee to go after Coulson’s left side, which Coulson defends with an almost careless elbow, the fist of which he then sends into the point of goatee’s chin, and then rolls smoothly over Ortiz’s back when the big man attempts a charge, landing neatly on his feet and kicking the back of Ortiz’s knee out from under him as he tries to recover from his forward momentum. As soon as Ortiz’s hands hit the floor, Coulson slams down a hammer kick that Ortiz only barely avoids by rolling onto his back.

“An asset on his back is a dead asset,” Coulson says, not even breathing hard, and plants a foot hard into the middle of Ortiz’s chest. Ortiz coughs out a wheeze and taps at the floor, which is when the bulky guy makes his play. He swings low, going for the stretch of ribs that the armor doesn’t cover, and Coulson catches him by the back of his hand, Clint can see the textbook nerve pinch, and then Coulson literally picks him up off the ground and throws him at goatee, who had been trying to creep up in Coulson’s blind spot. Coulson’s foot comes down again, and catches the last two fingers of the bulky guy’s hand, and Clint winces as bones snap. Bulky guy taps out as goatee rolls out from under him, and swings himself into a very well executed side kick that would have taken Coulson in the chin if Coulson hadn’t bent backward, one hand landing lightly on the mat behind him, fingers tented, and sent his boot slamming into goatee’s ribs, sending him flying and then rolling, though he’s up on his feet at once.

Goatee circles Coulson warily, looking for an opening, and Coulson is looking calm and steady, hands slightly up, knees slightly bent. “Being unwilling to engage is just as likely to kill you as being too eager,” Coulson says, and takes three running steps forward -- goatee tries what Clint could tell him is a hopeless dodge to the left -- and snaps his foot into goatee’s throat, sending him to the ground, choking for breath.

Coulson doesn’t try for goatee’s fingers, probably only because goatee is already tapping out.

“Okay,” Coulson says, still breathing easy. “Who’s next?”

Clint watches, aroused and enthralled (and so pathetically grateful that he is not wearing the belt right now), as Coulson muscles his way through SHIELD’s assets. He takes hits, one to the temple hard enough that Clint finds himself on his feet without thought, but it doesn’t even seem to stun Coulson, and most of the rest of the hits that he is taking are glancing and superficial, nothing really serious, even when Coulson moves it up to five at a time, even when Coulson picks out their ten best, choices that no one argues, and Coulson chews through them with the same solid, steady patience that he demonstrates in every other area of his life. 

Coulson is right, he’s not in the specialists’ league, not in _Clint’s_ league, but he’s so much closer than Clint had realized that Clint’s physical reaction becomes almost painful after a little more than an hour of watching.

Coulson has broken seven fingers by Clint’s count, when he steps back, hands up, and says, “Good job. Those of you with broken fingers get to Medical, and you all owe me individual sparring sessions. Gleason, watch your left side, or next time I’m going to break those ribs instead of just bruise them. Get to medical. Carrick and Walton, get to Medical; have them check to make sure there are no ligaments torn in those knees. Also see the Valky… Armory about redesigning your knee protection.”

Clint grins a little at Coulson’s autocorrect.

“Though they wouldn’t have to if you paid attention to ground level attacks better. You’re not always going to be on your feet in a fight, people, and neither are your opponents. You can’t let being on the ground be such a disadvantage, and you should _never_ assume that your opponent being on the ground means that he is out of the fight. All of you, thanks.” He strips off his gloves. “I needed the workout.”

The assets break up into cheerful groups, chattering at Coulson excitedly; Coulson takes the time to talk to every single one of them, with genuine and patient attention, and Clint realizes that Coulson isn’t really their teacher, or their sparring buddy, but some combination of both that defies easy categorization.

Clint’s so turned on he’s half afraid to stand up; he has zero chance of concealing an erection in these pants.

When Coulson is done with the assets, he gives Clint a little ‘follow me’ gesture, and Clint is almost relieved because it means he gets to walk behind Coulson until they get out the door, and there’s a lot less chance of Coulson noticing his erection once they’re walking side by side.

Coulson doesn’t seem to have anything to say as they head back in the direction of their quarters, and Clint doesn’t know what to say. 

Coulson had been amazing, but any kind of compliment Clint can think of sounds either backhanded or insincere, and at least half of his attention is still fixated on his own hard on and on the heightened physical awareness Clint suddenly has of Coulson’s body, the way he moves outside a suit -- and, Clint realizes that he doesn’t move that differently _in_ a suit, it’s just like some sort of camouflage that Clint has never made any effort to penetrate, and again, he feels foolish -- and the fact that Clint can smell the clean, hot scent of Coulson’s sweat as they walk, and the way that it does nothing at all to diminish his arousal.

He has no idea what he’s going to do when they get to their quarters except maybe hope that Coulson will be concentrating hard enough on getting cleaned up not to notice that Clint is turned on.

He should be so lucky.

Coulson turns on him almost the second the door closes behind them, takes his own shoulder holster out of Clint’s hands, and says, in a calm, steady voice, “Get rid of your weapons.”

Clint starts to obey without even thinking about it, realizes it midway through unbuckling the harness to get the quiver off his back, and then doesn’t stop anyway. Coulson is stripping down right there in the living room, boots, socks, then everything else in a slithering rush of material that makes Clint fumble at his sidearm. 

Coulson leaves it all on the floor in a pile, _including_ his gun harness, and then his hands are abruptly working on Clint’s armor, and there is nothing rushed or fumbling about it, though Clint thinks that there should be. Clint is down to his Valkyrie designed underwear before he thinks he would have been able to do it on his own, and Coulson is cupping his palm around Clint’s aching cock, entirely disabusing Clint of the notion that Coulson hadn’t been aware of Clint’s predicament, probably all along.

“Come on,” he says, and turns to walk into the bedroom, pausing just long enough to grab his gun, and Clint feels frozen for a second; he doesn’t know what’s happening, and also Coulson walking away from him, the play of muscles across his back and the flex of his naked ass -- has Clint seen Coulson’s ass? he doesn’t think so -- is also a little… something, Clint doesn’t know, something intimidating, almost, something that makes him feel unsure.

He does follow, also pausing to snag his gun, because he doesn’t know what else he would do, and because even though he feels unprepared for whatever is about to happen, he can’t deny that he want wants _something_ to happen.

Coulson is standing by the bed, waiting, looking as calm as he always looks, but he says, “What do you want to do, Clint?” and Clint has no answer.

Clint puts his gun on the bedside table, playing for time, but eventually he has to turn and face Coulson again. He opens his mouth, tries to find something there, but closes it again after a few seconds of silence. Even from several feet away, Clint can smell the salt-sweat of Coulson’s ‘workout,’ and his hands twitch a little. His mouth waters. He doesn’t know what any of that means.

Clint’s sexual repertoire is limited to back room hook ups with women he was sure never to see again, a single hook up that he had thought was going to be mutual handjobs with a guy who had then tried to get Clint to his knees (and whom Clint had left unconscious or possibly dead in a bathroom stall), Trickshot and those he had shared Clint with -- which he understands has no place here -- and Coulson himself.

He doesn’t know what to do.

“Come here,” Coulson says steadily, but with a steely kind of insistence, and Clint does. Coulson kisses him on the mouth, once, lips closed, just a careful press of lips. He cups Clint through his underwear again, and murmurs, “What do _you_ want to do, Clint?”

Clint’s hands come up without any real instruction from his brain, and land on Coulson’s shoulders. He grips them there for a few seconds, feeling bone and muscle under his palms, and then, glancing up at Coulson’s face for an instant to judge his response, lets them do what they want, which seems to be to smooth down the slightly sweat-sleek expanse of Coulson’s chest, sliding around the ridges of Coulson’s ribs, and then cupping Coulson’s hipbones tightly, maybe a little too tightly, as Coulson lets out a soft sigh, though there is nothing bad on his face when Clint glances up at it to check.

Coulson’s cock is still huge and hard and intimidating between their bodies, but Clint isn’t thinking of it that way, is just looking, and sees the V of muscle that leads to the pale brown thatch of hair surrounding it, and the way that it’s perfectly straight, no curve at all to the length of it, and knowing that it’s not going to imminently be shoved up his ass, he can see that it’s almost perfect, dusky and ready, that it’s symmetrical and good to look at, handsome, except that sounds like such a stupid word for it. His hands twitch and clutch at Coulson’s hips, but he has no idea what that means; it feels entirely involuntary.

The sweaty-male-musk smell of Coulson is almost overpowering this close to him, and Clint’s mouth is watering again, and he feels his grip on Coulson’s hipbones tighten, then loosen, and he glances up at Coulson’s face again.

He feels hideously exposed and off-balance.

Coulson slides a hand up the back of Clint’s neck and scratches his fingers through the short hair at the back of his head. “It’s okay,” Coulson says, and his face seems to match his tone, steadying and solid. “Whatever you want to do is okay.”

Clint believes Coulson, doesn’t think Coulson could lie to him looking right into Clint’s face without Clint knowing, but there is some kind of resistance to this, this whole thing, this totally unfamiliar scenario, that his mind and body can’t seem to push past.

“Can I,” Clint says, and barely recognizes the rasp of his voice.

“Yes,” Coulson says, before Clint can finish, even though Clint isn’t entirely sure what he had been going to say to finish the sentence at all.

His hands clench at Coulson’s hips again, and Clint can’t stand the way Coulson smells, and he doesn’t decide anything, but he suddenly has his mouth on Coulson’s throat, tasting the sweat there, feeling smooth skin under his lips, and then against his tongue; he feels Coulson swallow and the tension of the tendon under Clint’s tongue, and he’s bitten Coulson here before, he remembers it, the mark is still there, he even remembers why and the way it had felt to do it, the desperate ache to leave something real on Coulson’s body the way that Coulson seems to always leave his mark on Clint, but it doesn’t feel the same. He licks at it, and his mouth floods with saliva, and then he’s mouthing the front of Coulson’s throat as well, seeking out the fresh-sweat taste of his skin. Coulson’s hand is still cradling the back of his head, and merely holds Clint without pressure, as Clint shifts to the other side of Coulson’s neck.

Coulson makes a low sound, and Clint’s knees, for just a moment, feel weak and uncertain, and then he’s resting his forehead against Coulson’s shoulder whispering, “I don’t know what to do, Coulson,” in a terrible, wrenching voice that he doesn’t recognize as his own.

“Phil,” Coulson says, hand closing on the back of Clint’s neck firmly. “And you’re doing fine, Clint.”

“I don’t,” Clint starts, and it’s there on the tip of his tongue, the need to ask for direction, and roosting in the back of his brain, the desire to be told what to do next, but there is fear there, too, too much fear to let go of, and that’s what really pushes Clint to whisper, “Can you lay down?” not bravery or desire or anything clearer or _cleaner_ than that, but just fear, old and too weighty to fight.

If Coulson knows that, it doesn’t show on his face.

Coulson… _Phil_ scratches his fingers through the short hair at the back of Clint’s head again, it makes Clint’s head want to fall back and let that hand catch him, but Phil merely steps around Clint and eases onto his back on the bed, his legs slightly spread, his arms a little outstretched.

Clint just looks at him for a few seconds. He wants to ask and he can’t, so he follows Coulson onto the bed, hovering for a moment on one side of him, and then swinging one leg over his hips. He’s still wearing his Valkyrie underwear, he realizes, and kind of dazedly understands that they’re just going to get in the way, so he shifts to peel them off. When he moves back, he doesn’t expect his cock to brush up against Coulson’s, lying huge but unthreatening against Coulson’s… Phil’s, why is it so hard ( _crack, crack_ , the flat almost unimportant sound of Coulson’s gun), _Phil’s_ belly. The jolt it gives him is a mix of lust and adrenaline, and while he’s not sure how to direct his lust in this situation, he’s more than familiar with adrenaline, so he lets it carry him forward recklessly, shifting his hips down so that Phil’s cock is sliding up against Clint’s, smooth and silky skin, hot and hard. Phil’s hips jerk up a little, and Clint gasps out a sound that surprises him, and when he glances up at Phil’s face, he still looks steady, still a solid sense of his calm presence, but his eyes are dark and a little hot, like Clint touching him is good for him, something he actually wants.

It makes Clint think, it makes him have to think, maybe for the first time, about what _he_ actually wants, and the answer isn’t as hard as he’s been making it. He wants to make Phil look like that. He wants to put his hands and his mouth on Phil’s body and make Phil’s eyes go dark and hot, wants Phil to look at him like he _wants_ Clint’s touch, and that knowledge makes it is almost easy.

He shifts, keeping his hips lined up with Phil’s just a little to one side, and leans in, putting his mouth where it had been at the beginning, tasting Phil’s skin and skating his tongue lightly along the tendon, and then he just lets his mouth wander, first to the sharply delineated line of a collarbone, which still tastes of sweat. He doesn’t know that he wants to bite, but when he does, Phil moans softly, and Clint seizes up with lust, his fists twisting in the sheets just beneath Phil’s outspread arms. It tugs hard enough at his left side to twinge at both new tattoos there, but he doesn’t care about that right now. He cares about the curve of Phil’s biceps, and doesn’t try to stop himself, feeling Phil’s muscles tighten against his mouth and his tongue, letting his lips rove across Phil’s body, chest and ribs, and the inside of Phil’s elbow, where the skin is soft and thin.

Phil’s breathing has sharpened, and Clint leans up again to arch his hips against Phil’s, and they both shudder. Clint puts his hands back on Phil’s chest and sweeps them downward this time, feeling the taut smoothness of his skin stretched over muscle and the small, tight nubs of Phil’s nipples.

Trickshot had-- but no, Clint won’t, he walls it off, and looks at Phil’s small brown nipples instead, sees them pebbled and touches one of them carefully with just the tips of his fingers, in case, just in case, but Phil arches his back in clear invitation. Clint draws it between his finger and thumb and twists, pulls lightly; it hardens further and Coulson breathes out in a way that Clint interprets as good, and Clint bends to feel the nipple under his tongue, the texture different and good, and the way Phil hitches out several short breaths, these definitely good sounds, and Clint tries the other to the same effect. Some kind of momentum Clint doesn’t know the rhythm of is building up as he thinks of the feel of Phil’s hip bones in his hands, and he moves down Phil’s body and spends at least two minutes with his tongue and teeth exploring the left one, Phil’s thigh clenching against the front of Clint’s body, aware of Phil’s cock radiating warmth against his cheek, but somehow unworried about it, and the dip of Phil’s navel is right there, and there is a little bit, Phil’s cock is _long_ , and his navel is slick with precome, but Clint flicks his tongue into it anyway, and the taste is blissfully unfamiliar, saltier than sweat, limned with bitterness, but it brings back nothing, no pain or fear, so Clint dips his tongue into Phil’s navel again. Phil jerks slightly up, shoulders curling off the bed, but the sound he makes, the sound is almost a real cry, short and soft, but enough to make Clint’s whole body break out into goosebumps. Clint can feel the length and width of Phil’s cock pressed to his chest, and the way that it jumps just a little against Clint’s skin, and Clint is almost dizzy with the feel of it.

He likes it, he likes it there for some _why_ that his mind can’t pull forth, something about it that’s too slippery, that Clint chooses not to pursue.

He moves up to rock against Phil’s cock again, this time his own cock a little slick with precome as well, and Phil gasps loud enough that Clint does it again, and then Clint can hear himself gasping, as well, and for a while, a few seconds or maybe more, he isn’t sure, Clint just slides them together, up against each other, hips arched to press them tight, and beneath him Phil moves, he starts a slow roll with his own hips that is so good Clint, shuddering, has to stop or he’ll probably come all over Phil’s cock.

“Clint,” Phil says, and his voice is low and deep. His face when Clint looks is soft with pleasure, eyes fixed on Clint, still dark but a little hazy now. “Do you want to fuck me?”

Clint takes the question like a punch; he doubles over, his brow coming to rest on Phil’s sternum and just chokes in breaths like he’s learning to breathe all over again. Phil’s hand is on the back of his head, scratching at his hair, stroking his neck.

“You don’t have to,” Phil says seriously, both hands on Clint now. Phil is holding Clint a little, but not in a bad way; it makes Clint feel calmer.

“I want to,” Clint half-croaks, the sound a little muffled against Phil’s skin. “Phil. I want to.” And he does, he _desperately_ wants to fuck Phil with the taste of Phil’s skin fresh and perfect in his mouth. But he hasn’t, and Phil has to know, because he can’t stand the thought of hurting Phil any more than he could have let any of Phil’s assets really hurt him. “I don’t know how,” he confesses.

“Yes, you do,” Phil says calmly. “It’s not that different, and anything you aren’t sure of, I can tell you.” His hands stroke down the back of Clint’s neck. “I really want you to fuck me, Clint,” he says, as though it doesn’t bother him at all to admit it. Like it’s nothing, or more like it’s _something_ , but something _good_ for Phil, or maybe good for them both.

Clint shudders and nods and after another few seconds is able to get back up onto his hands so that he can look at Phil. “I… it’s like the assets,” he tries to explain, half-breathless and stammering a little in his uncertainty. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I can’t stand it if I hurt you.”

Phil gives him a smile that is both heated and reassuring. “You’re not going to hurt me,” he promises, and Clint can tell it’s a promise, and Clint believes him.

Clint nods again, unsure of what to say. Phil pulls him up and kisses him, and Clint falls into it gratefully, those several long moments of uncertain fear washed away at the heat of Phil’s mouth, the desire he’s projecting so clearly through lips and teeth and tongue, and Clint is barely doing anything, letting himself be kissed, letting himself be reassured.

When the kiss breaks apart, Clint hears himself asking, “What do I do?” and it’s almost easy to ask, at least now, at least in this one specific situation.

“It’s easier your first time if I’m on my knees, easier for you, not for me; I’ll be fine either way. What do you want?” Phil asks.

Clint kind of wants to stop being asked what he wants when he feels so ill-equipped to know the answer. He thinks about it, though, and decides maybe it’s better this time if he can’t see Phil’s face, and also that Phil can’t see Clint’s. Maybe a little cowardly, but Clint still feels raw and unstable, and he doesn’t want to show that to Phil any more than he already has.

“On… On your knees,” Clint says. “So I can see what I’m doing.”

“Okay,” Phil says, and leans over for the lube. “Do you want to do this, or should I do it?”

This question is also hard to answer, though not because Clint has any real problem with it. He wants to feel Phil open for his fingers. If Phil is sure that Clint has no chance of hurting him, then Clint wants that. However, the idea of watching Phil open himself up with his own fingers is unexpectedly and unbelievably hot, and makes Clint’s face burn, taking Clint himself by complete surprise.

Some of that must show on his face, because Phil’s expression becomes a little wry. He hands Clint the lube and eels out from under him, going to his hands and knees. Clint shifts a little so that they’re both stable in the middle of the bed, and opens the bottle of lube. He knows how much Phil uses on him, and is completely sure that is too much. But he can guess, he thinks, so slicks up two fingers thoroughly and then has to pause, just to admire Phil on his knees, his back tight with muscle, especially the way he’s currently twisted around to look at Clint. His ass is muscular and slim like his hips, and the opening that Clint is supposed to put his cock into looks ridiculously small. The skin between Phil’s cheeks is pink and hairless, which Clint wonders a little about. Phil, as though reading his mind, says, “I had the hair removed; if you don’t have objections, I’ll do the same to you.”

“Why?” Clint asks.

“It’s just cleaner and easier,” Phil says. Then adds, “And hotter.”

Clint feels himself flushing.

“Go on,” Phil urges. “You know how to do this.”

Clint does, of course. Phil has done it at least once since Clint got here; it had been done to him daily at one point in his life, but he doesn’t have to think about that to remember how it was done. He slicks his fingers along Phil’s hole, circling the tight pucker, pushing just a little. He’s actually surprised when one of his fingers slips inside almost at once, easily, without Clint having intended it to happen. Phil makes a soft humming sound, so Clint pretends he’d meant to do that, and slides the finger deeper inside, feeling the heat of Phil’s body pressing tightly around it. He slides it in and out and tries to ignore his drooling cock, because he knows there is a prostate somewhere, and he intends to find it.

“Tip your finger down a little more,” Phil murmurs, and Clint feels it when he finds it; Phil’s body jolts, but his hole also clamps tight around Clint’s finger, something Clint can imagine all too clearly happening around his cock. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, and Phil chuckles a little. 

“Another,” Phil orders, and Clint obeys, and is actually a little reassured by the easy command in Phil’s tone. He slides another finger around Phil’s opening, having to push a little this time, but it slides in with only a little more difficulty than the first, and this time Phil makes a low, satisfied sound even before Clint starts to move his hand. It bolsters his confidence a little, and he carefully fucks Phil with two fingers, feeling the skin of Phil’s entrance catch a little at his knuckles as he pulls out, twisting his wrist around experimentally until he finds Phil’s prostate again. Phil’s hips jerk when he does, and he pushes back on Clint’s fingers, a rough little sound escaping him that twists like shrapnel at the base of Clint’s spine.

“More?” Clint asks, because he’s honestly not sure, but Coulson shakes his head.

“With a less experienced partner, almost always three,” he says. “But, while I rarely actually get fucked, there are a lot of other things that I do myself.” Clint actually shivers all over at that idea, and then at the helpless little visual that accompanies it, and then one more time at how _easy_ Phil is, saying it, how the fact that he clearly likes it in the ass doesn’t change anything about his dominance, and his tone makes that undeniable. “I’ll show you,” Phil says, his voice warm and lazy as he presses back on Clint’s fingers. “If you want to see.”

“I do,” Clint manages to get out at a bare whisper. His cock feels bruised and tender with want.

“You’ve got a gorgeous cock,” Phil says, and Clint is a little shocked to hear Phil say cock, he isn’t even sure _why_ , but his whole body responds to it, heat and something prickling like electricity along his skin, as well as that sharp, almost painful grating of desire at the base of his spine. “Go ahead and use it.”

Clint fumbles a little, lubing up his own cock, terribly distracted by the angular stretch of Phil’s body laid out before him, but manages to get lined up with Phil’s hole. He steadies himself with a hand on one of Phil’s hips and pushes carefully, and he can see, God, he can see the way that Phil’s opening resists a little at first and then stretches to accommodate the width of the head of Clint’s cock at Clint’s continued insistence; when the head pushes in past the ring of muscle, Phil makes a sharp, but somehow clearly good sound, and Clint just sits as still as he can, surrounded by the incredibly tight heat of Phil’s body, and clenches his eyes shut, panting dizzily. 

Phil clenches tight around him, and Clint knows it’s deliberate, and even maybe a little deliberately cruel, and Clint husks out, “Don’t, please, Phil, please,” and Phil makes a satisfied noise that would make Clint nervous if he wasn’t absolutely on fire with lust.

He sucks in a harsh breath and rocks forward just a little, trying to somehow get used to the feel, but Phil’s body is so hot and tight around him that it feels like trying to get used to having his cock dipped in lava, and eventually he draws back and pushes forward again, deeper this time, and a groan feels like it tears its way out of his throat. Phil murmurs something soft in encouragement, but Clint hardly hears him. His gaze is fixed on the way his cock is stretching out the skin of Phil’s hole, and he’s wondering if that’s what it looks like when Phil fucks him, more, probably, but in general, and if it does, no wonder, God, no wonder, because it’s enough to make him sweat just to see it, and feeling it at the same time is almost unbearable. He pulls back, and this time really thrusts, watches Phil’s hole take him, and Phil lets out a startled sounding growl, and shoves himself back onto Clint’s cock as if by instinct. Clint makes a piteous sound at all that sudden heat and pressure and friction, his fingertips biting into Phil’s hips, and Phil says, “Come on, then,” a kind of order that sounds like a challenge, and Clint has never been good at resisting a challenge, and hasn’t been doing any better at resisting when Phil deliberately gives him an order lately, either.

He jerks out, feeling like the friction of it burns his cock in the best possible way, and then thrusts deeply, not quite all the way, but far enough that he and Phil both make hoarse pleasure sounds.

Then Phil, the sadist, says, “You can’t fuck me too hard, Barton; you don’t have it in you,” and Clint almost reflexively drives his cock into Phil as deeply as he can -- recognizing, he _recognizes_ what Phil is doing, he is not a stupid man, but it doesn’t matter, it still seizes him up with strings of need and binds him with them. It isn’t any different like this, with his cock in Phil’s ass instead of the reverse, the need to be good, to be open, it’s the same -- and feels that he should have used a little more lube on his cock by the friction burn, and doesn’t care. Phil growls out an encouraging sound, and Clint, who without the order and the challenge might have come at the first or second thrust, he’s so desperate, finds a rhythm hard and fast enough to make Phil groan harshly, every stroke jerking a grunt of effort out of Clint, every push inside hot enough to make him shudder at how close he is, every sound Phil makes enough to force him to strain to hold back, until Phil folds down to his elbows on the mattress and Clint bends further over his back. Phil lets out a sharp cry that Clint recognizes, and if Clint knows anything, it’s how to use his body. He fixes that angle with his hips and batters at it, breathing in short, harsh little gulps that are making spots jump in front of his eyes, and listens with something like triumph and terror mixed together as he drags Phil deliberately into orgasm, Phil’s whole body wire-tight and trembling, his ass tightening around Clint’s cock like a fist, and it’s only when Phil is gasping for breath and his hole is no longer strangling Clint’s cock that Clint lets himself come, groaning desperately as he feels himself spilling into Phil’s body.

He almost falls backward as he pulls out, still gasping, his cock still twitching; Phil’s hole is a little stretched open, wet with come and lube, and Clint makes a little sound he can’t quantify, something quietly shocked and uncertain at the sight of it, at the heat that pulses through him.

Phil glances at him over his shoulder, something a little steely on his face, like he’s measuring Clint for something, but then just eases up to his knees and turns around to face Clint and falls onto his back, looking… well, looking well-fucked. 

“Next time you can clean up after yourself,” Phil says easily, his tone light, but his eyes are not just serious, but a little on the threatening side. Clint licks his lips and tries to think about how he feels about that, but it drags at his mind in that way, that familiar way, and he flushes now, and he will flush then, but he will do it. “Come on,” Phil says, still watching him, and Clint crawls up the bed to lie down beside Phil, Phil who he’s been sleeping pressed up against every night since he got here, and isn’t sure what to do. Phil tugs him in and brushes his lips against Clint’s temple and murmurs, “That was excellent. If I could give tags for that, I’d give you two.” 

Clint blushes furiously, but he also hears himself let out an unexpected bark of laughter, and when he looks at Phil again, his lips are quirked up.

“Good as you thought?” Phil asks curiously.

“Better,” Clint says, and can still feel the heat in his cheeks. “It was a lot better.”

Phil looks satisfied in a smug kind of way. If Clint leans his forehead up against Phil’s chest so Phil can’t see him blushing for a few minutes, it’s just that. 

Clint doesn’t doze, but does let his mind roam a little, and it’s not all that unusual, when he lets it, for his mind to roam into something useful.


	10. Chapter 10

“I’ve got an idea, Phil,” Clint says, and he sounds awfully alert for someone who just fucked Phil well and soundly, and should probably be post-coital for at least a little while. Still, this is Clint, and hardly anything about Clint surprises Phil anymore. There’s an eager kind of note to his voice, like he’s actually excited about whatever this idea is.

Phil doesn’t really mind shoving back his own post-coital feelings; historically, Clint’s ideas are good. “Tell me,” he says.

“For Hydra. The submissives there, they’re the ones that are really in danger. Von Doom will have guards and containment, but you and Fury both have said he isn’t that imaginative. We can get those subs out with stealth and guile and then with brute force, when the odds are evened a little. But the submissives Hydra has, they’ll have some way of controlling them. What we need is a mockup of the subs’ Hydra gear and a team, but maybe not even that, maybe just a duo, and then we need to get them smuggled into one of Hydra’s bases. That gives us a chance to find out how they’re being controlled, where they’re being held, what the subs themselves know about it, because they probably know a lot. There may not be anything they can do about it, but they probably know at least in general. They’ll have been threatened and given at least some information about what constitutes disobedience and what form punishment will take.”

Phil turns this around in his head for a few seconds, trying out the weight of it, parsing it a little, through Clint’s excitement, and looking for logistical flaws. “What exactly are you suggesting our assets do once they’re in?” Phil asks.

“Talk to the subs, maybe only the women depending on what Hydra is doing with the men; let them know that we’re coming. If I was Hydra, it would be something in the suits, or why put them in the suits at all? Specifically, probably the masks. I didn’t see any markings on the three I saw unless the lack of markings is the important thing, but there has to be something. If we can get someone inside, and they can disable whatever is in the suit, great. If we can’t disable a single suit, we have to figure out how to disable them on a bigger scale. If I was Hydra, the guards would have control of whatever is keeping the subs in line, and that would have to be a _thing_ of some kind. A button, a control device, some kind of _thing_ that we can either take out or take out the user of, to give the subs time to get out of the suits. If it is a thing, the subs will know that, will probably know exactly what it looks like.”

Phil is starting to see the shape of the idea, the whole shape, now, which is big enough to be significant, if Clint is right. “You’re not suggesting that we get assets into every base,” he says, and Clint shakes his head against Phil’s chest.

“If we could, that would be close to perfect, but that would take too long, even just to mock up the gear. If we’re lucky, we only have to do it for one base. If we can find out the ‘what’ at one base, it’s going to be the same at all bases. Then we can initiate a coordinated attack targeting that specific thing.” Clint shifts so that he can get an elbow under him and looks at Phil, his expression endearingly earnest. “The goal isn’t to kill Hydra, though that’s always a bonus. The goal is to free the submissives. If it’s something the guards carry, simple black ops teams can infiltrate and remove from play the carriers of those types of devices. If it’s something else, though, something in the base, a computer or a larger control unit, we’ll need an actual infiltration into the base. Someone who looks like they’re supposed to be there, or someone who can get in and out without anyone knowing they’ve been there.”

And, yes, Phil can see how it could be either of those options. He knows Hydra better than Clint does, though, he’s been working at receiving intelligence from and distributing counterintelligence _to_ Hydra for more than a decade. He can see either option beings used, but he’s betting, with the time Hydra has had to plan, that it’s going to be the second possibility, or maybe both. Maybe if they’d caught Hydra out early, with only a few submissives, guards would have been enough, but while they still don’t have any real figures on exactly how many submissives are missing, and how many Hydra specifically has under their control, they are still likely talking about a number somewhere in the thousands. They will have taken the time to put in a big system, something protected inside each compound. 

“We all want to rain fire down on their heads for doing this, but we can’t let it blind us to the _mission_ , which is to recover the submissives alive,” Clint says so vehemently that Phil strokes a hand across his shoulder to ease him down a little. It works, though Clint seems entirely unaware of it. “So, if the guards carry individual units, the subs will know. If they don’t, the subs will also know, and will probably also know if the control device is within the compound. It’s even possible they’ll have an idea where, though that won’t necessarily be the same from compound to compound. So first, we need to infiltrate the submissives. Then, depending on what we find out, it will either be the relatively simple matter of coordinated black ops attacks, or the much more difficult matter of some form of facility infiltration. The question is, do we have people that can do that?” He’s looking directly at Phil for answers now, and Phil is listening, but he’s also feeling quietly victorious about Clint’s entirely casual use of ‘we’ to describe SHIELD. Like Clint doesn’t doubt for an instant that _he_ is a part of that ‘we.’ “I know we can’t plant people in Hydra for any length of time, Hill was telling me about it, but do we have enough people that know enough about Hydra and their compounds to be able to get inside, either by stealth or by guile, just long enough to locate and destroy any kind of centralized control mechanism? It would have to be done all at one time, all the bases and compounds across the board.”

“Probably, but you’re still simplifying,” Phil says thoughtfully, but he’s not criticizing, and Clint seems to know that.

Clint rolls his eyes. “Yes, but only because I don’t need to spell it out for you. It’s going to be hard, Phil, yes. Even the easy options will be hard. But the basic idea _is_ actually simple. Especially the first step, which is just reconnaissance and intel. Get in; find out what they know; get out with that information so that plans can be made to counter it.”

“We’ll need female assets or specialists for this,” Phil says. “It’s too possible that Hydra are indoctrinating the men into their ranks, at least at a glance.”

“I know,” Clint sighs, clearly disappointed.

Phil quirks one corner of his mouth at him. “Just making sure you knew you wouldn’t be going in first. Can you draw what you saw in Norway, Clint?”

“No,” Clint says, but his eyes are bright. “No, I can’t, but I can _tell_ , and I’ll bet you everything that the Valkyries can make it based on what I can tell them, given just a little time.”

Phil turns to look at him, surprised and frankly a little impressed. “That could work. We already know what the uniform looks like, we actually have some in hand that we can strip down and fit, but the masks… They’re geniuses, and it would be some trial and error, but with your eyes and their skill, it could work.”

“I told you I had an idea,” Clint says, exasperated. “You didn’t think I’d have given some thought about how to actually implement the idea?”

“I’m sorry,” Phil says seriously. “I should have.” He pauses for a long moment. “Even so, we should send someone back to Norway to see if we can recover those suits; maybe we can find something out about how they work.”

Clint shakes his head. “No point. They’ll never recover those bodies,” he says with complete certainty, and Phil just nods, taking his word for it.

Phil sighs and arches his back. “Alright, I’ve probably had more of a ‘break’ than Fury really had in mind,” he says, and turns to Clint and smirks. “Let’s take it to him and see what he thinks.”

He glances Clint over. “You really need to rinse the sweat off, but I don’t want to mess with your bandages. How do they feel?”

“A little sore, just used the muscle around the tattoo a little more than I expected to, but not bad. I can manage to shower without getting them wet.” Clint’s hand hovers over the bandage over his chest, fingertips twitching as though he wants to touch.

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve had much worse that I’ve had to take care of by myself for a lot longer, Phil,” Clint points out.

“Go ahead then,” Phil says. “I’ll need a little more effort to clean up.”

Even so, they’re both presentable again within twenty minutes or so, Phil back in his customary suit, Clint in the armor again, and Phil is getting so used to seeing him in it that anything less feels a little wrong. The bow and quiver on Clint’s back still look like they belong there, should have been there all along.

Phil’s phone rings, which he answers with, “Coulson.” 

“Barton’s Pirate King is here,” Hill tells him, a note of bemused disgust in her voice. “He’s a walking cliche.”

Phil isn’t surprised. “I want to stop in the war room first; Clint has some thoughts.” He ghosts a smile in Clint’s direction. “He can deal with the pirate king after.”

“Great,” Clint says drily, flexing his left arm like he can’t resist, and wincing at the pull on the tattoo. Phil wonders how the ink on his hipbone is faring.

Phil’s wrist hurts like a bitch; it feels cut and bruised and almost burned all at the same time. He has no doubt at all that the result will be worth it.

They head back to the war room, where Hill is working on adding more known locations of submissives to the map, and Maxwell is bent over several spread out documents, brow wreathed in a frown. Sitwell is there, sitting close, but it’s Maria that notices Maxwell’s thundercloud of an expression and rubs her fingers through his hair, murmuring, “You don’t have to find everyone at once.” Maxwell’s neck goes loose at her touch.

Phil notices Sitwell watching them, and isn’t sure from the expression on Sitwell’s face whether or not to worry. Maxwell is still only wearing a temporary collar; Sitwell hasn’t actually claimed him. Although by the way Maxwell is sitting, perched on the edge of his chair, there had been at least some kind of claiming.

The idea, once Clint breaks it down, sends Fury into immediate action. He doesn’t even acknowledge that Clint’s done speaking before he’s on his phone with someone, and it’s to Phil that he says, “Get him to the Armory as soon as he’s done with Hale.”

“You’re welcome,” Clint says cheerfully, and Fury spares a moment to glare at him balefully. Clint looks like he’s barely resisting the urge for further impertinence.

Phil prudently catches Clint by the elbow and leads him away from Fury.

“What do you need, as far as Hale goes?” Phil asks.

“He’s a walking, talking parody of a pirate,” Hill mutters from nearby, as though she feels the need to reiterate.

“Yeah, but that makes him predictable,” Clint says with a little grin. “Just a plain, uncomfortable room with a table and two chairs and a video camera I can visibly rip off the wall.”

Phil arches an eyebrow. “He responds best to old school form of interrogation,” Clint says. “He’ll assume I’ll want to beat him off camera.”

“Are you planning on it?” Phil asks.

“Only if I have to, but like I said, he’s predictable. If it’s a credible threat, he won’t take a beating to hide something he thinks I’ll eventually get out of him anyway,” Clint says. “Besides,” Clint says a little more slowly. “I think if he can, he’ll help us. I can’t know, but everything I do know about him makes me think that this is nothing he’d want to do, or have his fleet do.”

Phil gets on his phone and has Hale moved into an interrogation room in the style that Clint had requested. Phil can’t help but notice that Clint is back to his usual self, all cheer and sass. He feels about a thousand times better himself. The workout, sure, but he’d be lying if he tried to pretend that Clint didn’t have at least as much to do with it.

Phil walks with Clint to the interrogation level -- “We have an interrogation _level_?” Clint asks, taken aback; Phil points out that a mission that involved anything major or critical can generate dozens or even hundreds of potential suspects and witnesses -- mostly in silence.

“It’s a good idea,” Phil says kind of abruptly into the silence.

Clint shoots a sideways look at him.

“In case it doesn’t work, you should still know,” Phil says gently. “It’s better than anything the rest of us have come up with. At least this way we aren’t sending whole teams in with the hope that they’ll be able to tell once they’re physically on site.”

“Was that a possibility?” Clint asks.

Phil shrugs. “Everything is always a possibility,” he says evenly, but Phil is pretty heavily invested in the success of Clint’s idea. “I know I promised to take you to Latveria,” Phil says.

Clint is already nodding. “I know. I might be more useful if sneaking into Hydra compounds becomes necessary.”

“You and me, both,” Phil says, throwing a look at Clint. “I’ve been in and around more Hydra compounds and officers than any other five senior field agents put together. If we end up having to dress up and play fanatic, I’m at the top of that list.”

“Which will work best?” Clint asks, not looking like he likes the idea of Phil being on that list at all. Clint is probably also aware that he is _not_ capable of walking into a Hydra base and simply falling in as though he belongs there. He’d have to do it the stealth and death way. 

“Depends on the compound, depends on the location of the theoretical device,” Phil says. “Just depends. We may end up doing one for some and the other for others.”

“Coulson,” Clint says, as though he’s not sure what to say; an objection is flitting across his features, but he’s managing to keep it behind his lips.

Phil quirks his lips up. “It’s my job, too, Barton,” he says simply.

“I could play backup,” Clint says uncertainly; Phil doubts Clint has ever played backup in his entire life, though he appreciates the thought. But he can’t encourage it. If they go in like this, neither of them will get backup.

Phil glances over at him, unsmiling.

“Yeah,” Clint sighs. “I know.”

Phil stops outside a blank door that looks just like all the other blank doors. Clint glances around, sees a room with a window across the hall, and jerks his chin toward it. “The feed goes in there?” he asks.

“Yes,” Phil says. “Are you really expecting any trouble from him?”

“No,” Clint says firmly, and then visibly hesitates, mouth open, as though on the verge of telling Phil something. Then he merely shakes his head again. “I can take him, easy, but I won’t have to. He’ll talk.”

Phil pauses this time, curious about that stutter of behavior, and he might have said something except that Clint turns toward the door. “These lock from the outside, I assume.” He sounds a little unhappy about it.

“There’s a scanner for your collar,” Phil assures him.

“That sounds dangerous,” Clint frowns.

“Specialists aren’t usually doing the questioning,” Phil says. “That’s what agents are for.”

“Ah,” Clint says. “I’ll yell if I need anything.”

He opens the door, which is absolutely silent, goes in, and closes it behind him.

Phil crosses the hall and goes into the monitoring room. There are three screens, one for the main camera, two for microcams, and the speakers are sensitive enough that Phil can hear both occupants of the room breathing clearly.

Clint is leaning against the door, arms folded across his broad chest, one knee cocked up with his foot braced on the door. Phil can’t see his expression -- he’s managed to position himself so that none of the three cameras are picking up his face -- but his body language reads as bored. The other occupant of the room, Lyndon Hale, the pirate king in all but name, has one ankle resting on his knee and is leaning back in his chair, looking relaxed.

“Barton,” he says. He’s a grizzled man, late fifties to early sixties. He looks fit, bulky a little like Clint, but weathered like someone who spends time on the sea, which makes perfect sense at the same time that it’s a little dichotomous. If he has the power Clint seems to think he does, Phil suspects that he’s mostly land-bound, now, dealing with the rest of his business. Of course, Phil doesn’t know a lot about pirates in general, or about the effects of long term exposure to open ocean; maybe that weathered look is just leftover from the days that he actually did most of his own pirating. He’s got salt and pepper hair, tied back into a knot at the base of his neck, a scruff that’s entirely silver which is not quite dense enough to be called a beard, and seven gold hoops in his left ear. He’s dressed in a motley assortment that Phil would have termed ‘gypsy’ before ‘pirate.’ He even has an eyepatch.

Phil represses an irreverent thought.

“Lyndon. Still got a stack of gold bars with my name on it?” Clint asks.

“I keep them in my cabin, where you can see them from the door,” Hale says. “Just to remind people it’s waiting. Have to clean the blood off of it from time to time, when someone shows up with your supposed corpse. Not that I’d take you any way but alive. We’ll get down to it one day, you and me, but it’ll be you and me, not someone else doin’ the dirty work. Still got an arrow with my name on it?”

“In this very room,” Clint says, and sounds so perfectly serious about it that Phil wonders if it could be true. He guesses all Clint would need would be a Sharpie.

Hale barks out a laugh, and says, “Of course it is; where else would it be?” He gives Clint a long look, eyes a little narrowed. “So you’re here. One of them, now.” There is something almost like a question in his voice, though. Phil wishes he could zoom in with these cameras. He still can’t see Clint’s face from any of the three angles he has on the room.

“Looks like,” Clint says, and shifts slightly.

Something tightens at the back of Phil’s neck. He doesn’t know what it is, suspicion or just intuition, but something.

“You’ve been doing something, and I want to hear all about it,” Clint says, his voice going wire-sharp, like a garotte.

“I’ve been doin’ lots of things, lad, as I’m sure you’re well aware; you were always one to keep your ear to the ground. You’ll have to be a mite clearer on what it is, exactly, you’re lookin’ to find out.” But Phil _can_ see Hale’s face, and clearly, and Hale is giving Clint some kind of look, something significant, though Phil can’t guess at what the significance is.

“I think you know,” Clint says, like a razor coated in ice. Phil isn’t sure he’d have believed Clint could sound like that.

Hale looks at the visible video camera, and Clint’s head tips toward it, though Phil still can’t see Clint’s face. Then he looks back at Clint again, that same narrow look, almost searching.

“If you think that’s going to stop me from finding out anything I want to know, you should remember The Maldives,” Clint says. “Or Barcelona.”

“I don’t think _I’m_ the one that needs remindin’ of what happened in Barcelona,” Hale says slyly.

“I gave back as good as I got,” Clint says, pronouncing each word slowly, like it has significance.

Phil feels that little pull again, something like suspicion that he doesn’t like at all, doesn’t want to aim at Clint.

“The point is, you’re going to tell me everything I want to know,” Clint says coldly. “You can do that here in relative comfort, or you can do it the _other_ way.”

Phil shifts on his feet; the fine hairs at his nape are standing up, and he is certain that there is definitely something going on here that he doesn’t understand. He takes a step toward the door without taking his eyes off the monitors.

He’s surprised when he sees Hale’s expression; no fear, no concern, not even a hint that he feels threatened. He looks almost happy.

“So it’s real,” Hale says, tone almost earnest. “It’s not some half-ass job or short-term alliance. You’re with SHIELD now.”

“All the way,” Clint says, and relaxes. Even as he does, he drops out of his not-casual pose at the door and goes to the other chair in the room and drops into it. Phil can see his face now; Phil thinks he looks almost happy as well, and blinks at the change in scene and tone. “Are you done, then?” Clint asks, hopefully.

Hale nods slowly. “My… lieutenants have it in hand. And if I come back from this…”

“I know, Admiral, I’m sorry,” Clint says. Phil blinks again at the title, which Clint gives up with every appearance of genuine respect. “There was no other way I knew to find out what we needed to know.” His tone is apologetic, genuinely apologetic.

“No, I’m glad,” Hale says, and that looks just as genuine. “If I’d known how to get to anyone sooner, I’d have done it, but the Feebs were as close as Liana could get, and they wouldn’t hear of it. We don’t have the contacts for anything more, and there wasn’t ever anything this big.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Clint asks, leaning forward now, elbows on the table. “All this time, how could you not call me for help?”

Phil realizes his mouth is a little open, and closes it. He wants to be angry that he -- they -- have been played, but he can’t quite feel that. Clint’s face is too intense.

“And have you do what?” Hale demands. “Send you out against them with that damned bow, you and that Russian she-wolf that you sometimes run with, watch you bounce off them like bugs off a windshield? No. I was never going to do that. We saved who we could, just a few every time. I’ve got all their locations.”

“What about…?” Clint begins, and Hale uncrosses his ankle from his knee and bends down, jerking up the leg of his loose, striped canvas pants. He has a prosthetic leg, not the fancy kind, but just the titanium post. He huffs out a breath and lifts it up so that it’s propped across the corner of the top of the table. “Remember how?”

Clint grins. “Like you didn’t make me practice until I could do it in the dark with my hands behind my back,” he says, sounding fond, and dips into a pocket and pulls out a set of lockpicks. He has the casing of Hale’s leg open in less than fifteen seconds, and inside are sheaves of tightly rolled paper. Clint pulls them out carefully, and puts them on the table. He unrolls them, and inside is an arrow. Even on the monitors, Phil can tell that it’s nothing like one of Clint’s standard arrows; it’s almost ridiculously ornate: the wood of the shaft looks like mahogany, the head might be actual gold, and the fletching looks like it might be made from peacock feathers. Clint angles it toward the camera. Etched into the shaft in gold filigree is “Lyndon Buchanan Hale, Esq.” 

Phil can’t quite bite back a laugh. An arrow with Hale’s name on it, and in that very room.

He doesn’t know whether Clint would have told or not. He does know that Clint almost had, before he’d gone into the room, that weird little stutter of un-Clint-like behavior. He thinks Clint’s silence would have depended on the old man with one eye and the ‘peg’ leg, because, ultimately, Clint had already betrayed him to SHIELD, and wouldn’t have been willing to do it twice without his permission. Thinking back on the conversation, he can pick out the places where the two of them had said things without saying things. 

Fury will give him absolute hell, but Phil is weirdly charmed by it, by their relationship, almost _warmed_ by it, because it’s the first sign he’s ever seen that Clint has ever had anyone to trust before.

Clint says, “You might as well come in, Coulson.” 

Phil watches for a few more seconds, while Clint puts the arrow back into Hale’s hollow leg, fitting it carefully, as though there are brackets or something inside to hold it so it doesn’t rattle around, and then closes the hollow tube of it up again, tucking away his lockpicks.

Somebody in security is getting into so much trouble for that.

Except for how they aren’t, because Phil isn’t going to tell anyone.

Phil turns away from the screens and goes out the door, crossing the hall, and raps once before he lets himself in. Clint stands up and gestures for Phil to take the chair. 

Hale gives Clint a look of faint surprise that Clint doesn’t see, and then just looks thoughtfully at Phil.

“Lyndon Hale, this is Agent Phil Coulson. He’s my Handler. I swear to you, you can trust him. Once we’re done here, we’ll make you safe.”

Clint technically has no right to make such promises, but Phil does, and he gives a sharp nod. “Not that I would have known it,” Phil says a little wryly, “but apparently it’s good to meet you.”

Hale looks amused. “Well, don’t be too hard on yourself,” he says. “It’s a closely guarded secret.” His good eye actually twinkles. (Phil tries to imagine Fury’s eye twinkling, and can only internally shudder about what kind of mayhem would have to be going on to make that happen.)

“Very closely. I’m to understand that you’ve managed to accumulate some information we can use to get our submissives back,” Phil says.

“Me and about eighty percent of the unregistered vessels that occupy seventy percent of the earth’s surface,” Hale says, looking solemn. “That won’t be all of ‘em, and there’s nothing I can do about that. But it will be a lot.” He gives Phil a shrewd and steady look. He points to the papers on the table, which have curled back into a roll without Clint holding them out flat. “That’s what we know, collectively. Would have brought it sooner if we’d known how.” He looks genuinely sorrowful about that.

“I believe you, Admiral,” Phil says, and he does. “And in the future, we can set up lines of communication with your ‘lieutenants,’ if that’s something you want to do.”

“Those kinds of lines are a two way street, at best, though,” Hale says, eyes sharp. “I won’t make a decision that might leave us under your thumb without at least talking to the people you’d be dealing with, first.”

“SHIELD isn’t like that,” Clint says. Hale looks at him, maybe a little flatly, and Clint sighs and rolls his shoulders. “Of course they’ll want you to do things for them sometimes, but I’m willing to bet they’ll be things you’d already want to do. Most of it will be information, and there are advantages to having the kind of firepower behind you that SHIELD could bring to bear. I know the ‘council’ serves a purpose, but wouldn’t it be nice if Li… your _lieutenants_ didn’t have to worry quite so much about keeping them off your collective backs.”

“I’m not following your logic,” Hale says.

“Information,” Clint says. “Or disinformation, as the case may be. If you’re working with us, feeding the council the kind of information that works in your favor will be a lot easier.”

Hale looks at Clint for several long moments, then nods slowly. “Maybe. But I still want to have some time to think and talk about it before I make that kind of deal.”

“We can help protect you,” Clint says softly.

Hale smiles a little. “I know. But you know it’s not about that.”

Clint sighs, but he turns to the paper on the table and begins unrolling chart after chart, maps mostly, clearly marked with destinations and numbers, usually even with longitude and latitude. There is a treasury of information here, and it’s not just from the South Pacific, which is where Clint had said Hale ruled his little kingdom. It’s from everywhere. 

“How…” Phil begins, but Hale interrupts him.

“Unless we make a deal, it’s better if you don’t ask how,” he says shortly. “Better if you just try to take my word for it that it’s all real, all as accurate as we can make it, and that it’s incomplete.” He gives Phil a wry look. “We’re not all that different, really. We do what we do and you do what you do, and when push comes to shove, we decide what side to come down on and we put all our weight behind doing what we think is the best thing. A lot of us think this is the best thing, but not all of us. Some you can’t even ask, you already know, and some are just too scared, but this is still a lot. What we didn’t know ourselves, we usually managed to steal. But still. Incomplete.”

Phil will advocate a deal with Fury if necessary, but for now he’s willing to let Hale keep the secrets he clearly thinks are too dangerous for SHIELD to know about ‘them,’ the pirates, or a specific group of pirates, whichever it is. If necessary, there are other ways to find out, too. But Hale’s information is vital, and Phil isn’t inclined to try and entrap him. “Is any of it in code that I need to know about?” Phil asks.

“No, it’s all plain English, with some nautical speak here and there. There were those that knew what I was keeping track of that would have had to have been able to read it if something happened to me. I also have about a dozen boatloads of submissives we’ve just been circulating among ourselves, keeping them moving, that need a place to go to port.” He gestures broadly. “This should be what you need to get most of the rest of ‘em back. People talk around the hired help.”

“Oh my God, Phil,” Clint says, spreading out maps so that they lay end to end. “Tens of thousands.”

“At least a hundred thousand,” Hale says. “Minus a dozen boats or so. More, because not everyone sees or cares. Some people will do anything. But even some of that, I’ve got. I’m willing to cut a few throats to save a few thousand extra lives, if that’s what it takes. Heard the same about you.”

He says it like it’s a challenge.

“SHIELD will go to any lengths whatsoever to recover these people, and that is in no way exaggerated,” Phil says grimly.

Hale smiles a little grimly. “Ready to go to war, are you?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Phil says.

“Good,” Hale says, looking satisfied.

“Did you get dentures?” Clint asks, and both Phil and Hale turn to look at him. “Uh,” Clint says. “Not important, right.”

“Caps,” Hale says grouchily. “Your bounty is slightly less than a quarter of a million now.”

Clint throws back his head and laughs.

Phil shakes his head a little, but says, “We need to get this information to the war room,” to Clint. “What do you suggest for Mr. Hale, in the meantime?”

“Admiral Hale,” Clint says. “And I suggest we find him some guest quarters of the visiting dignitary type. If it were up to me, I’d want him in the war room with us, but I know Fury is never going to let that happen.”

Phil cocks his head. “Not right now, at least. Let me deal with Fury.” He turns to Hale. “Is there anything you need?”

“Food and sleep,” Hale says simply.

Phil nods. “We’ll try not to leave you sitting around bored,” he says, which is the best he can do.

“A little boredom won’t kill me,” Hale says. Then, “You’re his Handler, then?” he asks.

“Yes,” Phil answers.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m the man that plans his missions, and I’m the one that always brings him back alive,” Phil says solemnly.

“So it’s fair to tell you that if you don’t, you’ll be on my list,” Hale says. His tone is almost conversational, but Phil doesn’t think for a moment that he doesn’t mean it.

“I understand your position completely,” Phil says.

Hale nods.

Phil calls someone to escort the Admiral to some real guest quarters, making it clear that he’s a guest and is to be given whatever he asks for within reason, but he and Clint don’t wait for Hale’s escort to arrive.

They head back to the war room, charts rolled tightly beneath one of Clint’s arms.

“The work he had to put into getting this information, and then getting it together, Phil,” Clint says tightly.

“I know,” Phil says.

“He must have been collecting it and tracking it for years,” Clint says.

“I know,” Phil says.

“You don’t know the kind of antagonism between some of the different fleets, Phil; I don’t know what Lyndon bargained with to make them all cooperate on putting this information together, but it must have been something immensely valuable,” Clint says urgently.

“I understand, Clint,” Phil says patiently.

“I just want us to do right by them,” Clint says, and Phil realizes he’s asking for reassurances.

“We’ll do with Hale whatever he wants to be done with,” Phil says. “Whether that’s a new identity or a position within SHIELD. With the rest of his group, that depends on him and them. If they’re open to an alliance, SHIELD is almost certainly going to be equally open to it. If we’d had them years ago, all of this…”

“Yes,” Clint says. “Exactly.”

They walk another minute or so in silence, and then Clint says, quietly, “I’m sorry.”

Phil knows what he’s sorry for, and by all rights, Clint should be. This kind of thing can’t be encouraged, but. There are circumstances, and Clint is still days old, as a SHIELD agent. That he has other allegiances is a surprise -- something not in his file at all -- but SHIELD _must_ be his priority in such cases.

Again, but. Clint _had_ given Hale to SHIELD, when it came down to it. He hadn’t told them everything, but he’d made the call to do what was necessary, knowing that he was potentially alienating a friend.

“Never again,” Phil says.

“I promise,” Clint says solemnly. “There isn’t really anyone else anyway. Just one other person, and she’s… not the same. She’s just someone I work with sometimes, if it’s got to be a two man crew.” 

“Is this information you’re willing to give up to SHIELD? The identity of this person?” Phil asks.

Clint’s silence is pained. 

“We’ll talk about it again when you’ve been with us longer,” Phil says, only a little disappointed.

“She may be on your hit list,” Clint murmurs.

Phil considers this. “Think about it. If she is, maybe better to try to bring her in. If she’s as good as you, we could use her.”

“I’ll think about it,” Clint agrees.

The war room is swarming with people when they enter this time. At least some of the assets and specialists in the field have been able to locate some of the submissives, though they often can’t provide detailed intel. It’s still enough that the map seems a lot fuller.

Fury looks up at them, and at the roll of charts under Clint’s arm, and looks at Phil. “I take it you had some success,” he says, but Phil doesn’t answer right away.

“Take them to Maxwell and Hill,” Phil tells Clint, and Clint shifts course immediately.

Fury watches Phil close in, and when they’re close enough that Phil is confident of their privacy, he says, “Clint’s pirate king is a friend. More than that. They clearly have history, strong ties. It’s a closely guarded secret. Hale has a quarter of a million dollar bounty on Barton’s head, alive only, and Clint’s well known to have an arrow with Hale’s name on it. Both of which are sort of true.”

“He didn’t tell you,” Fury asks, frowning, but not looking like he’s going to detonate, which is a little reassuring.

“He’d already given Hale up to us to get us the information we needed,” Phil murmurs. “Basically making it so that there’s no way for Hale to resume his position. Hale has other people in place to take over what he does, but still. I don’t think Clint was willing to give him up twice by revealing their relationship without clearing it with Hale.”

Fury’s frown deepens. “Anyone else out there we don’t know about?” he asks; he knows as well as Phil does that Hale isn’t in Clint’s file.

“A sometimes partner, for when it’s got to be a two-man job,” he says. “He thinks she might already be on our hit list.”

“Will he give her up?” Fury asks.

“He wants to think about it,” Phil says. Fury looks at him. “I want to let him,” Phil admits.

“For now,” Fury says sternly.

“Yes, sir,” Phil says, relieved.

“What happened with Blacklight, Phil?” Fury asks carefully, almost guardedly.

“I protected my specialist,” Phil says flatly.

“You know there will be an inquiry,” Fury says. “I can’t stop that.”

“I did what was necessary, considering what she was capable of and what she had already done,” Phil says. “Any attempt to hold her would have been difficult at best, and Nick, she went after his throat. She hit him hard where he’s most vulnerable. I wasn’t giving her a second chance.”

Fury looks at him for a long moment, and then visibly decides to drop it.

“The information?” Fury asks.

“Will probably mean the difference between success and failure,” Phil says honestly. “Not just from Hale’s stomping grounds, but from everywhere. His network must be… or have been… extensive. I think he stole what he couldn’t find out on his own, and probably killed some people to get the rest. He admits it’s incomplete. That there are some people he can’t get to and some people he doesn’t know about. But he has information on at least a hundred thousand submissives, not even taking into consideration whatever number Von Doom already has. Just knowing where the submissives were headed will probably give us more intel on Hydra than we’ve ever had. It would have taken us years to put this together.”

“Years we don’t have,” Fury says grimly. “What did you offer him?”

“Personal asylum in any shape he desires, contact and/or an alliance with the organization he can’t run any longer. He knows that’s a mixed blessing. He wants to get with some people before he decides. But if we’d had contact with whomever it is he runs… ran, damnit. Clint was right to bring him in, but removing him from play is unfortunate.”

“We can find a way to use him, if that’s what he wants,” Fury says. “Or we can set him up on an island somewhere with a gorgeous view and girls in short skirts to wait on him hand and foot. If the information is that valuable, I’m inclined to give him whatever he wants.”

Phil nods. “It’s still unfortunate, but the organization still exists, and Hale seems to think he’s got people in place that can run things. Maybe not as well without him, but the contact seems worthwhile. I mean it when I say if we’d had him as a contact already, this could not have happened. He implied that he attempted to have one of his people make contact with the FBI and wasn’t taken seriously.”

Fury sneers a little, a common response to any mention of the FBI.

“Spilled milk, now,” he says. “But I trust you. If Hale, or his replacement, wants some kind of deal, we can make something work.”

“Without Clint, we would be…”

“I know, Phil,” Fury says gently. “What do you want for him?”

“Access on par with mine,” Phil says without hesitation.

“You’re not talking about just clearance, here, are you?” Fury says.

“He’s better than that,” Phil says.

Fury sighs. “He’s still a field specialist. He’ll spend most of his time out. Does he really need to know what everyone else is doing?”

“Maybe not often, or even frequently, but I don’t want to have to get it with special dispensation if I think he does,” Phil says. “I want the option open. He has the potential to be a great tactical mind.”

“It’s moot right now. His access is pretty much unlimited. We’ll talk about it when disaster isn’t looming.”

“Yes, sir,” Phil says, a little stiffly.

Fury sighs. “He belongs where he is,” he says. “I know he can do more, but for now, he’s a specialist, and there could be repercussions to distracting him from that, Phil. I know you want him as a… hell, role model is the worst thing in the world to call his smart ass, but I can’t think of anything better.”

“Just as an example,” Phil says. “So the rest of them really get what they could achieve.”

“Role model,” Fury mutters crankily. “I just want you to think about what you’re considering putting on his shoulders. Specialists are specialists for a reason. They _specialize_.”

“He can do more.”

“And he’s proven it, and I’ve admitted to it, and I’m telling you I’ll think about what you’re asking for, but _you_ think about it, too, Phil. Is it what he wants? It’s asking a lot of him, to change the way the whole system works.” Fury is giving Phil a careful look.

“I don’t expect him to be doing the changes,” Phil says. “That should be you and Hill and me, working down. I just think he could be the kind of example that would make that job easier.”

“We’re going to back burner this conversation,” Fury says firmly. “Not because it’s done, but because it’s not a priority right now, and because he’s on his way back to you. But I _will_ think about it.”

“Yes, sir,” Phil says, and turns to watch Clint walk toward them. 

He hesitates a good five yards away, clearly unwilling to interrupt, but Fury waves him over.

“I’ll agree to whatever Hale wants personally, for protection or whatever, and I’m in favor of having contacts with whatever organization it is he was running. We’ll work something out. I’ll make concessions.” Clint blinks at Fury. “You brought him in, knowing it would take him out of the game, and that might piss him off, because SHIELD needed you to. We’ll take care of him and his people however they decide they want to be taken care of, no games, no hidden agendas. We owe them a debt. You did good work.”

“Thank you, sir,” Clint says, though he doesn’t look entirely happy.

“Had to be done,” Fury says, and clamps a hand briefly on Clint’s shoulder, a gesture of sympathy that Clint hasn’t been with them long enough to understand the rarity of.

“I know,” Clint says.

“The Armory is expecting you,” Fury says.

“We haven’t eaten since breakfast,” Phil says, checking his watch. It’s a quarter past three. “We’ll head down after.”

Fury nods and turns away, a clear dismissal.

They leave the war room, headed for the cafeteria, and Clint says, “Maxwell thinks Latveria has about twenty thousand submissives.”

Phil tilts his head a little. “They’ll have to get them out with the Helicarrier. We don’t have anything else big enough, and anything smaller will give Von Doom time to cause trouble for them getting out.”

“Helicarrier?” Clint asks.

And for three or four minutes, Phil just describes it, watching Clint’s face morph from disbelief to skepticism to interest and finally into excitement.

“When this is over,” he says.

“You’ll get your chance,” Phil tells him.

Clint eats mechanically; Phil recognizes it. He’s done it often enough himself. He gets what Clint is feeling, at least to some degree, and isn’t sure how to mitigate it.

Eventually, Clint says, “He’s been talking about retiring since he lost his leg,” as though they had been having a conversation the whole time. “I think he would have before now, but he had to be sure the rest of them could handle it.”

“You did the only thing you could have done, Clint,” Phil says. “I’m pretty sure Hale knows that.”

“He does,” Clint says, sounding sure. “It’s still a shitty thing to do to a friend.”

“He said flat out that he’d have made contact with us if he’d have known how,” Phil says.

“But it would have been sooner, and it could have been clandestine. It’s possible he could go back, but if SHIELD comes and takes you away, there are always going to be at least a few people that will never trust you again. Better that he stay gone. It’s just… still shitty.”

“You were close,” Phil says, careful not to make it a question. He doesn’t want Clint feeling like he’s being grilled.

“Saved my life, saved what was left of me, after Trickshot and everything.” Clint’s eyes are clear when he looks at Phil. “I functioned for a couple of years before that, but I wasn’t alive. Took a job to take him out. He put me back together, instead. The story is that he’s the one that got away for me, and on his end, that I’m the one that almost killed him, so, the reward, but the truth is, I took his leg, and he took care of me anyway.”

Phil keeps his surprise in careful check. “Why?” he asks.

“He said he just knew.” Clint looks away with a little shake of his head. “That he and I were supposed to meet. I don’t believe in shit like that, but I’m lucky as hell that he does.” Clint looks back up and shoots him a little grin that seems mostly genuine. “Let’s see if they’ll give us some baked goods to take to the Valkyries,” he says.

It turns out, Clint can sweet-talk one of the not-wait-staff-girls into two dozen chocolate chip raspberry cookies just by letting her have a good look at his collar. She’s still an intern, but she intends to be an asset, and she wants, Phil thinks, to be able to picture herself in something like it.

Clint tugs it out from under his vest and lets her slide a hand under it, examine the discs, even fondle the lock. He doesn’t look exactly easy with her doing it, but Phil doesn’t think it’s because of the collar. He thinks it’s because she’s a stranger, and close in his space. As far as the collar goes, Clint hardly seems to think of it at all. He just tucks it down again -- it isn’t hidden, the vest is just high enough to press up on the discs, and if he doesn’t tuck them in, they jingle -- and takes the box of cookies, giving her a faint grin.

As they’re walking toward the Armory, Clint says, “I said I didn’t believe in that shit.”

Phil just waits.

“He stood up unexpectedly; I missed the shot. It went through his knee, pretty much tore it to pieces.” He’s silent again for a long moment. “It’s the only time I’ve missed my shot.”

Phil still doesn’t say anything; he’s pretty sure that’s not what Clint is looking for. He thinks that Clint just feels he has to say it, so that it’s all out there. That he doesn’t believe, but that Hale had, and Clint had missed what was supposed to have been a kill shot for the only time in his adult life, and Hale had somehow pieced Clint back together after he had spent a long time in the dark.

Phil will never ask him how, though he hopes that Clint will tell him some day.

He also thinks of Clint, slurring out a string of words while they fucked: _Maybe it had to be you, maybe I can’t fill my empty places without your cock._

He doesn’t mention that, either.

The Valkyries are prepared for Clint. They have a full set of Hydra gear out and on a dummy of some kind, and then another, the same, except with all the piping and insignia removed from the gear. They also have half a dozen heads covered in molded rubber-like versions of the Hydra mask.

“Easier this way,” Lennox says, before Clint even asks anything. “We made a latex mold of the mask, and then silicone-rubber imprints of the original. You’ll be able to pinpoint where the differences are, and we can physically either slice pieces away,” she brandishes a scalpel, “or add to it,” she holds out a ball of putty, “until we get the generalization down. Then we can start actually trying to smooth that out into what it is you remember seeing.”

“Uniform exactly like that, cut and color, no decoration. I don’t see anything that needs changing, but they were cut to fit. I’d have noticed if they had been baggy or messy. The mask.” Clint goes to stand in front of it for a long time, his hands laced at the small of his back. Maya is standing by with a scalpel and putty, waiting. “Coulson,” Clint says. “I’m going to need the bow that they recovered from Croatia, along with at least a dozen of my own arrows. Can that happen?”

“I can make that happen,” Phil says, not sure why, but not feeling the need to question it either. He takes out his phone to handle it, and half listens to Clint give instructions to Maya on the changes in the mask.

“The goggles were narrower, as if to limit peripheral vision, maybe two centimeters on either side. They’re also rounder, not circular, but more oval. I think the shape change comes mostly from the bottom edge of the goggle, like that is more curved. The jaw is narrower and longer. It’s like… the changes are like they took the mask and made it less comfortable and effective for combat. The air vents in the nose and mouth plate, they’re all the same, except on the sub suits, the last two on either side weren’t actually cut out. The shape was there, but the extra oxygen flow wasn’t. The jaw is narrower, as though to remove space for a radio. It’s longer, too, maybe an inch? Not sure why, though, unless…” He frowns a little and paces a brief circle. He comes to look at Maya’s rendition. “Rounder on the tops of the goggles, too, but just a tiny bit. All these changes are just tiny, cosmetic and convenience changes. Enough so that a real Hydra guard knows when he’s talking to another real Hydra guard, and not a sub in a Hydra uniform. The most blatant part is the lack of color on the uniform. But it’s also like.” He sighs and considers the real Hydra mask.

“The texture isn’t the same either,” he says finally, gesturing to the real Hydra mask and helmet. “That is clearly armor, it’s got rigidity and shine to it, the surface is smooth. What they were wearing was matte, and it was solid, but I wouldn’t say it was armor. Which makes me think it’s not armored at all. It also makes me think that it doesn’t crack open like the real mask, which just separates at the goggles and nose and mouth piece. It makes me think these really are only one piece, which begs the question, how do they get them on and off; that may be an explanation of the longer jaw, to pull it off over their heads. Which makes me suspect that they don’t take them off, except to eat and sleep. In which case… they may unclasp in the back, with some kind of lock.”

Clint is looking deeply displeased at the idea, but there are lines of fatalism around his eyes, too. It’s the kind of look that means he’s pretty sure he’s right, but he doesn’t want to be.

He comes over to look at Maya’s pseudo-sculpture again, eyes narrowed. Then he turns and walks to the far wall and looks at it from there. He does the same from the other corner of the far wall.

“Even if that’s true,” Coulson says, “We’re not sending our people in locked into their disguises.”

“Of course not,” Clint agrees distantly. “But they may have to look like they are. Same principle, we aren’t going to make the faux masks one piece, and we’re actually going to make it out of armor. It just has to _look_ like it isn’t.”

Hardison himself shows up with Clint’s bow. When Phil arches a brow at him, he looks a little shamefaced. “It’s the only original I’ve got,” he says.

“I’ll make you as many as you want,” Clint says, reaching for the bow. “For right now, I just need the scope.”

Hardison relinquishes the bow, and Clint pulls it back, jaw clenching a little in a way that probably indicates tattoo related discomfort, and gazes at Maya’s rendition of the mask through the sight. “There is more of a diamond shape to the rebreather looking portion on the fake mask, vertically, I mean. Maybe shave off twenty degrees on the lower edges, but leave the jaw length and width alone. And the goggles are slightly canted outward, not enormously, but enough to compromise straight-on vision. The ridge above the tops of the goggles should be a little thicker, maybe a millimeter. Can I shoot one of your real Hydra masks?”

“Shoot the one on the left,” Lennox says. “The frame is just wire and batting.”

Clint takes an arrow from Hardison, moves as far away as he can from the mask he’s aiming at, and nocks the arrow. It hits with a cracking sound that is much louder than Phil expects, but which makes sense when he sees how the whole mask had basically cracked into pieces like a dropped ceramic bowl.

Clint lowers the bow.

“I only took one of the Hydra agents in Norway in the head. That is _not_ what happened. There must be some kind of armor, because otherwise there would have been brains everywhere, but not like this. The arrow hit home and stuck, like shooting a very firm rubber sphere.”

He aims the scope in the direction of Maya’s mask again. “Good,” he says. “That looks right as well as I can remember it. I wish I’d seen the damned things from behind.”

There is a lull in which the Valkyries quiz Clint on what degree of armor he wants as opposed to what he wants it to look like, to which he eventually just says, “You’re the geniuses, ladies. I want it to armor our agents as much as possible while retaining a matte finish that doesn’t look overtly armored. I don’t know how to do that. That’s why I come to you.”

Lennox gives him reproving eyes, and he sighs, and produces cookies from somewhere that he’s apparently been hiding them. Phil bites the inside of his cheek to hide his amusement.

For a while, they wait while Lennox and Anya work up an armored material that looks like it isn’t as armored as it is, and then have Clint take shots at it with his bow until they have a mix they like.

Next they use Maya’s mask to make another mold, and then time passes while that dries, and the three ladies are basically speaking another language while they each carve and stitch pieces of the armor by hand. 

Clint paces while they wait; Phil, with Clint right there in sight, finds that sorting through his email and actually handling things is much easier than it had been while he’d been waiting at Psych.

Clint and Hardison get into a technical discussion about the bow, both old and new, and about the sight that Clint wants to build for it (Hardison has two prototypes, but he’ll bow to Clint’s judgment if they prove not to be effective), and Clint explains to Hardison that he’d needed the bow so that he could look at the mask through the sight and remember as clearly as possible what it was supposed to look like. He’s matter-of-fact about it.

“I have great vision and a great regular recall, but I never forget someone I’ve looked at through the sight of a weapon. It’s hardwired or something, for me. I just don’t forget, which is why it had to be this bow. It’s a sight I made that works just like the sight I was using in Norway. Familiarity matters. That’s one of the reasons I’m not sure the sights you’ve got made will work for me.”

“They’re based exclusively off your design,” Hardison says. “I thought about trying something different, but in the end, you were clearly a master craftsman of your current weapon, and there was no reason not to think that that skill didn’t apply to the sight on that weapon.”

“Thanks, I think,” Clint says, grinning and whirling the bow around a little like a cheerleader with a baton, either amused by or oblivious of the fact that Hardison keeps edging nervously backward, like he’s afraid he’s going to get smacked.

Lennox eventually stands up, armored mask balanced with one hand inside it, and holds it for Clint to inspect, which he does both from very close up, and from across the room, both with and without the bows sight.

“It looks right,” Clint says. “I won’t be able to tell you for sure until I actually shoot at it whether or not it’s going to be effective as armor. What have you done with the back?”

They’ve left the back open, slit from neck to nearly the back of the head. They’ve threaded through a neat row of strings that can be quickly jerked down to close the back entirely, but Clint is still not looking entirely happy about it. “Even if we do mock up some kind of lock, we won’t know what it’s supposed to look like,” he mutters, his hands running over and around his bow. “Better that we don’t try than that we add something that’s going to look wrong even from a distance.”

“So, you want to shoot the armor we just made,” Lennox asks him, curious, not seeming displeased.

“I guess you need it as a pattern for the others,” Clint says.

“No, we’ve got all the molds and measurements,” Lennox says. “I’m just trying to decide what to put inside it, to ideally mimic the human head, factoring in the skull.” She taps her fingers along the edge of her work table, and throws a glance at Anya.

“Pig would be best, but we’d have to actually mold the skull,” Anya says doubtfully. 

“Just go for general weight and density,” Clint says. “I want to know that it’s _not_ going to just puncture like the one in Norway did, that we’ve got enough armor in it to afford some level of protection, but it’s not going to be perfectly armored, no matter what we do.”

“Grab one of the Barbie Heads,” Lennox says, which Anya disappears to do. While she’s gone, Lennox mixes up some more of the silicone-rubber mix she’s been using. When Anya returns with what is actually a life-sized Barbie head -- Phil is guessing it’s a hair and makeup toy -- she turns it upside down, and Lennox pours some of the mixture into it.

“We’ll need to wait for it to dry,” Lennox says. “About twenty-two minutes. In the meantime, we’ll get started on the mask and goggles, at least, for the two sets we need and at least half a dozen backups.” The ladies shape lenses and stitch them into goggles, talking about the refraction of the lens, and Clint looks bored for the first time.

He sidles over to where Phil is checking his email, not even trying to pretend he isn’t looking over Phil’s shoulder. Phil isn’t looking at anything Clint will recognize at the moment, so he doesn’t bother trying to stop him.

“What if we have to send spies into every compound,” he asks after several minutes of silence. “Whatever the device or devices are should be the same, no matter which compound we hit, but if it’s a central device, Phil, that could be anywhere. We know all the compounds aren’t the same.”

“But we do know the layouts of quite a few of them,” Phil says. “There’s a fairly decent chance that we can guess where they might put a control device, especially if we can get intel on where it is and how it’s guarded from just one compound.”

“You know it could be both, right?” Clint says. “A large control device to affect every sub in a suit, but the guards could have smaller devices to control a handful of prisoners at a time. If that’s so, I think it’s pretty likely the guards devices would be used more as a negative reinforcement tool than as a means to really hurt or kill a sub, but the main device is probably designed to entirely disable or kill.”

“We’re aware. We’re making plans on both levels, either to work independently of one another, or to implement together, if necessary. We are also guessing that whatever is built into the suit is going to be some kind of generator or conductor of electric current.”

Clint winces, but nods. “Either that, or something sonic. What else could they do, really?” he asks. “So the guards may have something like low grade tasers, and a central control device would probably generate either something like a high end taser, enough to knock the wearer of the suit unconscious, and/or something like a kill switch.”

“Knowing Hydra, they’ll probably have set it up both ways,” Phil says. “They wouldn’t want to waste their resources unless absolutely necessary, but not one of them would hesitate to kill them all if letting them live is going to be a detriment to their cause.”

Clint winces again, and then changes the subject without trying hide that that’s what he’s doing. “You and Fury seem pretty certain that getting the submissives away from Latveria is going to be a matter of some minor espionage, to locate them, some brute force to get them out, and the Helicarrier to get them away.”

“Something like that, yes,” Phil agrees.

“I was doing some research… okay, I was asking a lot of questions, and my understanding is is that Latveria is basically a fortress-country.”

“Not quite. Latveria has an enormous fortress, and it’s a small country, but there is some other land there. More likely, though, are the caverns and cellars under the fortress. But we know of several access points to those, and that’s what the minor espionage is for. To get someone in and find the submissives, and then find the closest exits to get them out.” Phil glances over his shoulder at Clint. “We have people who can handle Latveria, Clint. Don’t take that on, on top of Hydra.”

Clint doesn’t agree or disagree. He just asks, “Do we have plans for AIM?”

“Overwhelming force,” Phil says. “You’ve been in their facilities. They aren’t even close to the kind of secure that Hydra’s are, and the muscle that AIM tends to hire aren’t usually terribly loyal. Probably because AIM pays well, but basically treats anyone who isn’t one of them like they’re about as smart as a monkey. Which AIM probably thinks they are. It’s possible they’ll have some weaponry we’ll have to contend with, but for the most part, we’re just going to mow down their forces until we locate where the submissives are being held, and then remove them by force. The fact that they probably haven’t had the submissives long enough to take the fight out of them will probably help.”

“I feel the same way about Von Doom’s submissives, except in the opposite sense. If he hasn’t tried to integrate them -- I don’t know why he wouldn’t, it doesn’t make sense, but I trust your judgment lacking any personal knowledge of him -- then they are probably mostly healthy, tired of being prisoners, and ready to fight with us in order to facilitate a rescue.”

“It would make more sense if Von Doom weren’t Von Doom,” Phil says. “He’d never trust an army that he didn’t hand-pick every member of. That’s why Latveria is a problem, but not the kind of threat that SHIELD as a whole usually needs to deal with. We keep an eye on him because he has the potential to do great harm, under the right circumstances, and if he were able to get together the right team of people as smart and as nasty as he is, but it doesn’t surprise me that the Mandarin started with him. Even though Von Doom and SHIELD have only rarely crossed paths, he would see SHIELD as a major obstacle in his attempts to annex the rest of the world into his borders. And, because he has the resources to do it.”

“What is he waiting for, then?” Clint asks.

Phil considers this for a few seconds. “I think, and this is opinion based on pre-existing understanding of how he operates, not fact, but I think he’s waiting for SHIELD to invest our resources into something that takes up a lot of our attention. It’s even possible that the Mandarin suggested to him that such a situation would be arranged, if he was patient.”

“Ultimately, something will have to be done about Ten Rings and the Mandarin,” Clint says quietly. “This set up, Coulson, this game he’s got set up, it’s close to working. If things hadn’t played out just right, it could have worked. If things go badly for us, either with Hydra or Latveria, it could _still_ work.”

“You’re underestimating _us_ , now,” Phil says. “I know you don’t really know yet; you just haven’t been here long enough, and as far as shadow agencies go, SHIELD is _the_ shadow agency. But if we have more than two thousand assets and specialists, Clint, people that are deadlier than most ten other people put together, not even taking into consideration our senior field agents, try to consider how many agents we have. Not just the ones you’ve met here, they’re mostly not ready or have different purposes, but field agents, security forces, special guard forces. We have our own armies; yes, plural. If it weren’t for the fact that Hydra will probably kill a huge number of submissives if we don’t find out how they’re being controlled, we could drop a few thousand people on every base we know of. That’s an emergency protocol, you understand. We’d have to withdraw a ton of personnel from all over the world to do it, but it can be done. And some of that is already happening. We’re getting people moved, getting them close. We’re setting up our own side of the board.”

Phil turns to face Clint squarely. “You did good work. You saved us time and lives, and your tactical suggestions have been invaluable. But what you really did was give us the chance to save the lives of the submissives that Hydra has control of. But if you hadn’t, they still could not have won, not any one of them and not all of them together. We might not have been able to levy a crushing defeat down on them, but we wouldn’t have lost, either. It would have damaged both sides.”

“Yeah, but we still don’t know if the Mandarin is holding something in reserve,” Clint says seriously. “Because if we end up not being able to deliver a crushing defeat, if we survive, but are damaged, we have no way of knowing that isn’t exactly what he was going for.”

Phil tries to think of how to explain, and then has a better idea. Clint is wearing Fury’s security codes. There’s no reason he can’t know all there is to know, and that will help alleviate some of his questions. He pulls the Ten Rings file up on his tablet. “Come sit down. Read this. I’ll let you know when they’re ready for you to shoot Barbie.”

Clint quirks a little smile, and comes around the edge of the couch and sits, maybe a little closer than he realizes, balancing the bow across his knees casually, and accepts the tablet from Phil.

Phil gets up, mostly to stretch his legs a little, and to get a better look at Hydra’s submissive mask, as recreated by Clint’s memory. He has no way to judge. He hasn’t seen one before. But he sees how the changes are clear enough for Hydra personnel to immediately see who isn’t one of them, while still being similar enough that if someone got a look at one of the submissives from a distance, the differences wouldn’t be readily apparent.

A thing that Phil is worried about, a thing that he hasn’t mentioned to Clint, though he knows Clint has some understanding of it, is the possible indoctrination of the male submissives into Hydra’s ranks. There is not only a chance, but a strong chance, that some of the male submissives will come down on Hydra’s side in a fight. If Hydra weren’t stuck in a World War Two mindset, they’d have to worry about all of the submissives having been essentially brainwashed, but the women are likely to be mostly untouched by Hydra’s particular brand of madness. 

The men, some of them anyway, they may not be able to save all or even most of. It depends. Submissives as a rule are strong-willed, most of them unwilling to submit to anyone who hasn’t proven their worth as a dominant, and Hydra doesn’t live in the modern world. They won’t have dominants clearly, not the way that submissives from the U.S. would recognize them. As far as Hydra is concerned, if you’re a member of Hydra, you’re a dominant. For all Phil knows, maybe they _are_ all dominants. Maybe they only recruit dominants. But from what he understands of their manifesto, for lack of a better word, the world should be rebuilt in the image of Hydra, which would make it a world without submissives at all. Phil hopes the men being indoctrinated will be able to recognize that, as far as Hydra is concerned, they have no place in the ideal world, and that they’ll remember that for as long as they can.

It’s not something he can do anything about, isn’t anything _Clint_ can do anything about, so Phil hasn’t specifically brought it up. He’ll have to, though, if it turns out that Clint is going to be infiltrating a Hydra compound, without backup, and without knowing exactly what he’s looking for or where it is. He’ll have to make sure that Clint doesn’t assume a submissive mask means a potential ally.

Clint will hate it, but Clint is pragmatic. He’ll understand that they have to save any that can be saved, and let the rest choose their masters.

At least, Phil devoutly hopes he’ll understand.

Fifteen minutes or so later, Lennox is fitting the Barbie head into the mask, and Phil taps Clint’s shoulder to get his attention. Clint finishes his paragraph, taps it to mark it, and hands the tablet back to Phil.

“I want to finish that,” he says, and Phil nods. “And I want to see what we’ve got on Hydra, too.”

“We should have time,” Phil says. “We won’t be able to get anyone suited up and in position to infiltrate until tomorrow morning, and then it’ll be at least two or three days before they can get back to us. There will be a lot of waiting. I have a few things we need to do, but you’ll have time to look at the pertinent files.”

Clint nods, looking impatient and resigned at the same time. “It’s the only way to do it that makes sense, but I hate waiting.” He shakes his head. “It would be easier to wait if AIM’s involvement didn’t make this feel like a time bomb.”

Phil privately agrees.

Lennox positions the Barbie head with mask on a shelf as far across the room as she can get from Clint, and Clint takes another several seconds to stare at it through the scope. “It looks right,” he says. “The matte finish may be very slightly different, but Hydra will have had some of their subs for varying lengths of time, so there are bound to be some differences in wear on that finish. I don’t think it will matter.”

He nocks an arrow, and doesn’t even really pause before he fires. The Barbie head rolls off the shelf and into a corner. Lennox chases after it, and brings it over for Clint to look at. There is a deep groove along the left side of the mask, exposing Barbie flesh and about half an inch of silicone-rubber mix, but Clint looks pleased.

“The fact that it knocked the arrow aside at all is good,” he says. “I didn’t expect the mask to totally protect the wearer, but it didn’t shatter, and it definitely gave Barbie some protection, if not enough to save her life. Which isn’t quite what we’re going for anyway. The armor is mostly to provide protection for physical altercations, not projectile weapons, though I think it held up pretty well under ranged fire. I don’t think it would stop a bullet, but it will definitely blunt some of the force, and possibly knock it off course, and that’s the best we could hope to do.”

He turns to look at Lennox. “How long will it take?” he asks.

“We’ll be here until they’re done,” Lennox says matter-of-factly. “We need word on which assets or specialists will be going, so we can take measurements and alter the uniforms or masks if necessary, and best if we have that information sooner, rather than later. Otherwise, we’ll work until it’s done.” Clint looks like he’d like to object -- it’s already very late -- but Lennox arches a brow at him. “This is our job, too,” she says.

Clint nods. “Of course it is. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.” He glances at Phil. “Do we know who’s been assigned?”

“I’ll find out, get them here,” Phil says, and pulls out his phone to dial Fury.

Fury is either very busy or in an oddly good mood considering the circumstances, as he just recites the names to Phil and tells him to get some sleep, since he knows Phil only slept three hours due to his specialist breaking people’s necks in the gym shower. 

Phil can’t argue with that, he’s dead on his feet, though he has in the past, and still can if necessary, push through that and carry on.

Fury has chosen a pair of assets that work together under the same handler -- the handler sometimes changes; the fact that the assets work together never does -- and Phil contacts their current handler and requests their presence in the Armory immediately. When their handler seems reluctant, Phil asks him if he likes his job. He replies that they’ll be there in ten minutes.

Clint is still studying the groove in Barbie’s head, twirling his bow dexterously through the fingers of one hand. Hardison looks like he’d like to snatch it away from Clint, and is holding himself back only because he’s seen what Clint can do with it.

“He’s right here,” Phil says. “Ask him to make you another one. Then it won’t be the only one of its kind.”

“Yeah, but in the meantime,” Hardison says hopefully, and Phil sighs.

“Clint,” he says. Clint turns to look at him, brows arched. “Time for bed. I’ve only slept three hours in the last two days.”

“Oh,” Clint says. “Yeah, of course.”

Hardison holds out his hand for the bow and Clint hands it over absently, along with the half empty quiver of his own arrows that he’d requested. Hardison looks vastly relieved.

Clint seems deep in thought as they leave the Armory and head back to their quarters. They’re almost all the way there when he says, “This isn’t a sure shot.”

Phil doesn’t need to have the reference explained. “Nothing is a sure shot,” he says. “There are a lot of variables. But you upped the chances of a spy successfully interacting with captured submissives exponentially just by making it so they can blend. And don’t worry too much about the blending. Fury picked a pair that work together, and they’ll watch for as long as it takes to figure out a way to slip into the ranks.”

Clint sighs. “I don’t… I mean, I’m glad I can help, don’t get me wrong. All the things, I’m glad I’ve been able to help, and I’ll help with as much more as I can, but this… I don’t want to do this for my whole life.”

“I know,” Phil says. “I never expected you to.”

“Sometimes if people know you’re good at things other than what they already know, they forget that they already know you’re good at that one thing for a reason,” Clint says.

Phil spares a moment to concede Fury’s insight, but he’d never expected anything else, really. “Clint, you’re a specialist. No one is going to slot you in anywhere else, except on a very temporary basis if your skill set is necessary. No one is taking you out of the field, and most of the time you’re in the field, you’ll be doing what you’re best at, what you love. I promise, no one expects anything else.”

“I could never explain to Lyndon why I couldn’t be one of them,” Clint says in a low voice. “It was like he couldn’t hear me.”

“You have a specialized function within SHIELD,” Phil says. “Several specialized functions, actually. And those are all field functions. We’re lucky to have you in the war room this time, but we don’t expect or need you there all the time. I want your level of access bumped up so that if a situation you might know something about comes up, I can pass on information to you for your opinion or your background knowledge, but no one is taking you out of the field.”

“Yeah, okay,” Clint says, and nods.

He stops in front of their door and just stands there for a moment. Phil puts his thumb on the scanner and urges Clint inside. Clint is already fumbling at his armor, and Phil steps close to help. Clint makes help impossible by leaning forward to rest his forehead on Phil’s shoulder. Phil puts a flat hand between Clint’s shoulder blades almost by instinct.

“The men,” he says indistinctly into Phil’s chest.

“I know,” Phil says softly.

Clint sighs, and pulls back, working on his armor again. Once the vest is off, he wanders into the bedroom with it, and Phil follows, watching him hang it. The pants he leaves in a little pile that Phil is assuming is Clint’s accrued laundry, and reminds himself to show Clint the closet the washer and dryer live in. He puts his sidearm on the bedside table and falls into bed with his underwear still on and stretches out on his back.

Phil strips down without comment, hanging the suit, and then fetches the bag with the supplies from Sabine in it. 

“Ow,” Clint says dispassionately when Phil peels back the bandage on his chest, revealing the bow inked above his collarbone, but he lies still and lets Phil tend to it, and then spray liquid bandage over it.

Phil tugs Clint’s underwear down and off without much cooperation from Clint, and pulls the bandage away from his hip as well. Clint gets up on his elbows to look curiously down his body as Phil tends to the code on his hip. “It looks like some kind of cuneiform,” Clint says.

“I suppose it technically is, if a vastly more complicated one than you’re thinking.”

“What does it say?” Clint asks.

Phil reads off the first line, which ends in ‘killed gila rooster’ and Clint is grinning.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the running tally of my deeds, but aren’t these kind of identifying?” he asks. “I mean, they want to remove my scars, but these are okay?”

“If we ever find your body, we’ll know for sure it’s you,” Phil says. “There’s nothing written on you that is sensitive, or if it is, it’s written in such a way as it doesn’t give sensitive information away. You can tell anyone you like what it means, if you’re ever captured. This is unfakeable, though, Clint. They can never give us a body, even one marked exactly like you are, and make us think it’s you if it isn’t. There are things worked into the characters, just like my name is inked into your bow. It’s a guarantee.”

Clint seems like he’s considering that. Phil sprays liquid bandage over it.

He can feel Clint watching as he unwraps his left wrist and wipes it down, which stings like fire. Clint catches his forearm and turns Phil’s hand until he can get a good look at the hawk eye, complete with distinctive feathers, etched into his skin.

“This must have hurt like a bitch,” Clint says, voice oddly hesitant.

“It really, really did,” Phil confirms.

“Do you…?”

“No. It’s not something I’ve done since the first time I handled someone.” Phil gently frees his hand and turns so Clint can see the extremely faded red feather on his shoulder blade. 

“You can barely see it,” Clint says.

“It was a long time ago, and it wasn’t something I especially wanted to keep. It was done in red ink. I just let it fade.”

Clint is staring at Phil’s wrist. “That’s not going to fade,” he says.

“I know,” Phil says. “That was more or less the point.”

Clint looks away. “Come to bed,” he says. 

Phil, not sure what Clint’s reaction is or means, isn’t entirely sure he wants to drop it and get into bed, but he gets up anyway and turns out the lights.

When he slides into bed, Clint is rolling before he’s even settled, half-atop Phil, one hand sliding under the small of his back, the other curled tightly, but not painfully around Phil’s shoulder. Phil arranges his own arms around Clint as well as he can. 

Clint is shivering a little, and breathing quickly, but he doesn’t say anything, and Phil chooses to let it be, for right now. If Clint is still this way about it in the morning, Phil can talk to him.


	11. Chapter 11

Clint wakes early, not sure why. After several seconds, he realizes it’s because he has a hand wrapped around Coulson’s left wrist, and even in his sleep, Coulson is trying to tug it away. Clint lets it go immediately, and Coulson draws it back toward his body, but it’s still at an angle that Clint can see the tattoo at. It’s dark, and mostly he can only make out the shape of it, but he remembers the level of detail well enough.

Clint is a little boggled, both by the tattoo and by where Coulson had chosen to have it inked. Clint’s tattoos make more sense. They each have a specific purpose, the one on his hip to tie him to SHIELD, the other, above his collarbone, to tie him to Coulson. There’s really only one logical reason for Coulson to get a hawk eye tattooed on his body, and that’s to tie himself to Clint.

Coulson isn’t obligated to do it, and has only done it once before. Clint even understands the feather. It had been Coulson’s first specialist, and maybe that hadn’t gone the way Coulson had thought it would. Especially if that specialist, or his relationship with that specialist, hadn’t been what he’d wanted or expected.

But the tattoo on his wrist… That’s never going to fade. Maybe that’s part of what had made him place it there. Maybe it’s because it’s an unlikely place to get an injury serious enough to damage it.

But Clint still isn’t sure why. Why would Coulson choose to tie himself to Clint like that?

He lies still in the dark, listening to Coulson breathing, and thinks about what Coulson had said about what he wanted from Clint. Thinks about Coulson saying that he wants _Clint_ , knowing that Clint doesn’t give all of himself, believing that Clint is only acting in the role of a submissive because it’s part of the job, and saying that he wants Clint anyway.

He isn’t sure how much of that to trust, and he doesn’t like that he wants to trust it anyway.

As far as he knows, Coulson has never lied to him. Hell, as far as he knows, Coulson has never even omitted details that Clint might need to know.

And. And it’s been a long time since Clint has been willing to kill someone, _wanted_ to kill someone, the way he had that first asset, Ortiz, before Clint had understood what the point of Coulson going to the assets had been. If Coulson hadn’t stopped him, Clint has no doubt that he would have beaten the man to death. For touching Coulson. For daring.

Clint isn’t sure how or when it had happened. How Coulson had started to matter. Very few people matter to Clint, and Coulson and he had gotten off to a rocky start and managed a tenuous arrangement, but Clint had expected that to be all it ever would be: an arrangement.

But Coulson has trusted Clint every time. The first mission, both his judgment of Maxwell’s orientation, and of the way he had stepped in to protect Maxwell from Hill and Fury, the thing with Blacklight, the idea for infiltrating Hydra. Coulson listens, and he makes sure other people listen, and Clint can’t pretend that doesn’t mean something to him, especially with the obvious comparison he has right in front of him, the difference in the treatment between Clint and Maxwell.

Coulson has very literally killed for Clint, and that was _before_ he’d chosen to mark himself for the rest of his life with a symbol that isn’t even ambiguous in meaning. And Clint still can’t quite bring himself to think about Blacklight too closely. He understands that there had been some question, some division between Hill and Coulson, and that Coulson just… hadn’t cared. Had he genuinely ignored a superior officer and done what he’d promised Clint he would do? Because from where Clint had been standing, it sure looked like Coulson _had_. And he doesn’t know where to put that in his mind.

Coulson has been careful not to take what Clint isn’t willing to give; so careful that Clint has already been giving things to Coulson that he would never have allowed anyone else. He’s tricked some of what he needs out of Coulson, but some of it he’s just given. Setting himself up to be bound and ready for Coulson to use when he had come home had been something Clint had barely struggled with. Because… because he had known that Coulson had no expectations, and that Coulson won’t expect it of him again, won’t assume that Clint will ever do it again.

And Clint had wanted it so much, and it was so good.

Clint can’t even tell how he feels about Coulson anymore. He’s grateful, he’s protective, he _likes_ Coulson, he trusts him. He wants Coulson in a way that he had been sure he’d never want anyone again.

He can’t think of Coulson infiltrating a Hydra base with no backup without his hands curling into involuntary fists. He knows it could happen and that if it does he has to let it, but he hates it. He’s clear, especially after Coulson’s “workout” with the assets, that Coulson is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but Clint feels just as deeply that Coulson shouldn’t have to. That taking care of Coulson, having his back, is _Clint’s_ job.

He’s strangely confused at the same time that he doesn’t _feel_ confused. He doesn’t understand what’s happening in his head, but it doesn’t feel dangerous. Different and maybe unsettling, but not dangerous.

Coulson is not Trickshot.

Coulson has locked Clint’s collar around his neck twice, because of circumstances that had required it, but hadn’t done it after Clint’s tattoo, and Clint remembers it well enough to be pretty certain that he could have and Clint wouldn’t have thought to stop him. Coulson has never done it the way he really wants to do it, hasn’t asked, hasn’t even intimated that he still wants that. Clint knows he does. He’s seen it on Coulson’s face every time. 

And Clint wants him to do it.

The thought startles him so badly that he physically startles, and Coulson is awake an instant later, his hand on Clint’s shoulder, a gentle, soothing pressure.

“All right?” he asks, voice a little sleep blurry.

And that’s all. He doesn’t ask if Clint had dreamed badly. He doesn’t ask for an explanation at all. He only asks if Clint is all right.

“Yeah,” Clint says roughly. “Sorry.”

“Can you sleep more?” Coulson asks.

“I don’t think so,” Clint says, and he knows that Coulson will find something for them to do, even though it can’t be later than five in the morning, and Clint is grateful for that. He needs to get out of his head.

“The cafeteria will be open, and I still want to see your accuracy with handguns on the range. I also may have promised Sitwell a report from you about your encounters with our teams in Norway, because he’s convinced they aren’t being completely forthright about things that might make them look stupid, but you can dictate that out to me; I won’t make you write it yourself. Will any of that work?”

“Yeah,” Clint breathes, not really surprised that Coulson doesn’t list sex as a possibility, although it would have been a possibility that Clint would have accepted. It’s not what he needs right now, though, and Coulson seems to intuit that. “Sorry,” Clint says again.

Coulson runs his hand down from Clint’s shoulder across his back. “Don’t be. This is more sleep than I usually get.” His tone is wry. “At some point, I’ll show you my office and let you read through classified files while I catch up on some other work I’ve been ignoring. I know you don’t like the waiting.”

“I’ll manage,” Clint says, and wonders if he could kiss Coulson now, or if it would be strange. Ultimately he decides he’s not ready for the potential strangeness, and sits up in bed. Coulson slides out on his side and turns on the light, walking naked back to bed, unselfconscious and good to look at, and bends over to take a look at Clint’s bow tattoo.

“This is peeling a little more rapidly than I thought it would,” he says thoughtfully. “If you want, we can leave the bandage off and you can wear jeans and a t-shirt to give it some air. If you’re going to wear the armor again, we should bandage it, though.”

“I thought you wanted me in the armor,” Clint says, a little amused.

“I want you to heal as comfortably as you can,” Coulson says. “If that means something less confining than the armor for a day, then we’ll do that.”

Clint considers for just a few seconds. “I’d rather be in the armor,” he says truthfully. “I have no way to transport the bow and quiver in jeans and a t-shirt.”

He doesn’t say that he needs the comfort of having the bow on him, and Coulson doesn’t ask.

“Grab a shower, then, and I’ll get you bandaged up when you’re done,” he suggests.

Clint slides out of bed beside where Coulson is standing, and for a few seconds, they just sort of regard one another. Clint thinks Coulson wants something that he doesn’t want to ask for, but he isn’t sure enough of what that is to offer. Plus he probably has awful morning breath. He grins a little at the thought.

Coulson arches a brow at him.

“Just hoping there will be coffee when I come out,” Clint says, and slips past Coulson, not making any attempt to keep their bodies from brushing.

The hot water on the new tattoos is just a hair shy of intolerable, but Clint manages, and even conscientiously uses antibacterial soap on them. It isn’t until he’s mostly dry that he realizes he’s got a raging hard on that’s definitely going to defy the belt. He isn’t sure how long he’s had it. Maybe since Coulson has slipped naked out of bed. As it is, he isn’t sure what to do about it. He isn’t even sure Coulson will worry about the belt today, since it’s likely Clint won’t be alone.

In the end, he walks out into the bedroom with his hard on right there on display. Coulson is checking his tie in the mirror, and his hands pause in what they’re doing as he regards Clint’s reflection. “Either you won’t be wearing the belt today or we’ll have to do something about that,” he says; his tone seems to imply that he has no opinion on the issue.

Clint isn’t sure he has much of an opinion either, except that now that he’s noticed, he’d like to have an orgasm. He looks down at his cock with mild displeasure.

“I don’t think glaring at it will help,” Coulson says drily.

“Do I need the belt today?” Clint asks, genuinely looking for an answer. He wouldn’t mind coming, but he isn’t in a state of desperate arousal or anything. It’s not like morning wood won’t take care of itself, if he doesn’t do anything to further agitate it.

Coulson turns to face him, looking impeccable, almost untouchable, except for the way that Clint can remember every detail about what it’s like to be allowed to touch him. “Do you want it?” Coulson asks.

Clint glowers at him a little, but it’s mostly because he’s annoyed with himself. He _does_ want it. But it’s not something he’s sure he’s willing to say. Though it’s not like Coulson doesn’t already know that he gets off on it in a way that has nothing to do with it being a means of protecting himself.

Coulson shrugs off his coat and drapes it carefully across the back of a chair. “Lay back on the bed,” he says, and disappears into the other room while Clint makes his way over to the bed. Now his cock is actually interested, heavy between his thighs. He lays back on the bed, but propped up on his elbows, waiting. Coulson comes back with the belt, which Clint abruptly remembers leaving on the kitchen counter, with the intent of coming back to find the stuff to sanitize it, but without ever actually having done so.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Clint says, and he is, but Coulson just quirks his lips at him.

“It’s taken care of,” he says, and walks to stand at the foot of the bed. “Spread your knees,” he says, and Clint does, putting his heels on the edge of the bed to keep them up. He could scoot further back, but then Coulson would have to get on the bed to do anything, and that would wrinkle the hell out of his suit pants.

Clint blinks, a little rattled at the idea that Coulson’s suit pants had even crossed his mind. 

Coulson pops open the lube and drizzles it onto the plug liberally, and then bends, pressing gently at one of Clint’s thighs to indicate that he wants them spread wider, and Clint flushes with unexpected heat even as he obeys. The tip of the plug is cool and slick as Coulson slides it against Clint’s hole, and Clint shivers abruptly with goose bumps. He shivers again when Coulson slowly presses it into him, and it’s the wider one, the one that Clint had chosen himself, so Coulson has to work it into him with some patience.

Clint is a little humiliated at how quickly his body responds, his breathing going quick and fast, his cock jerking against his belly. Coulson’s gaze is thoughtful as he presses the plug in all the way.

Clint expects Coulson’s mouth; that’s how he’d done it before, and it would be a lie to say Clint doesn’t want it. 

Instead, Coulson says, “Give me your left hand,” which Clint does, almost without thought. Coulson drizzles lube into Clint’s palm, and says, “Jerk off for me.”

Lust tightens at the back of Clint’s skull and in the cradle between his hipbones, surprised desire that Coulson wants to see. He barely remembers this from Trickshot, just at the very beginning, before he had understood how things were going to be, but he had liked to be looked at. He had liked doing things and being watched. He can feel how hot his cheeks are, and he can sense Coulson seeing it.

Clint pulls his hand back and wraps it around his cock, still propped up on one elbow, and gives himself a slow stroke, just enough to see how fast this will go. But Coulson tugs the plug part of the way out of him and presses it back in quickly, and Clint’s hand goes tight, and if Coulson keeps doing that, Clint knows exactly how fast it will go: very.

Coulson is watching his face as much as his cock as he tugs the plug back out, and Clint is trying not to think about what his face is showing while he works his fist around his cock, tight, with a twisting motion he’s sure Coulson won’t forget. A moan slips past his lips when Coulson pushes the plug back into him, and Coulson smiles faintly. It’s such a slight expression, but Clint is becoming familiar with Coulson’s expressions, and this one heats him all over. Clint is doing the jerking off, but it’s Coulson who sets the pace, really, working the plug into Clint’s ass more quickly and less gently, which drives Clint’s hand harder and makes his hips hitch upward slightly.

“Be still,” Coulson murmurs, and Clint keeps his hips as still as he can while Coulson rocks the plug up into him and his own hand is rough and urgent on his cock. “Good, Clint,” Coulson says, that same low murmur, and Clint jerks out a little sound of surprise at the way Coulson’s voice hits him, and is coming hard over his fist, and Coulson doesn’t stop working the plug into him until Clint has stopped shuddering. 

Then Coulson is urging him to move his hand, which Clint dazedly does, and he dips down and cleans Clint’s cock up with his tongue before he pulls his balls through the ring and draws Clint cock into the cage. He snaps the lock into place, and just looks at Clint for several long seconds, his eyes dark and satisfied.

Clint can see the hard line of Coulson’s cock pressing against the front of his pants, but Coulson doesn’t seem to feel the need to do anything about it. He vanishes into the bathroom to wash his hands, and Clint just lays there, knees still up, breathing hard, aware that he’s still aroused, that it’s because he knows that Coulson is hard now, and trying to will his cock not to try to get hard in the cage. He’s still lying there when Coulson returns, and while Coulson’s face had been intent and almost lazy with arousal while he’d watched Clint jerk off, it goes sharp with desire as he gazes at Clint now.

“Go wash your hands and let me get a bandage on your chest,” he says, an unmistakable order, and Clint is up and halfway to the bathroom before he realizes he’s doing this now, he’s responding to Coulson as though Coulson actually _is_ his dominant, and the thought sends electric arcs of fear and desire bristling through his cerebral cortex. Not his hind brain -- his hind brain had already wanted this, has always needed it -- but the thinking part of his brain, the part he holds onto, like it half belongs to Coulson already.

Clint washes his hands and tries not to think about how it’s terrifying at the same time that it’s almost a relief.

If it was ever going to be someone…

He shakes his head. He needs to be doing something.

Coulson sprays liquid bandage over Clint’s tattoos, and then bandages just the bow. Clint can see that Coulson’s tattoo is already wrapped, and feels an odd little twist of disappointment. He wants to look at it again, partly, but also because Clint had kind of wanted to tend to it himself. And because there is something wrong with him this morning, something that had started at some point earlier that Clint can’t pinpoint, Clint hears himself ask, “Can I see it again?”

Coulson regards him for a moment, then unbuttons his shirt cuff and rolls it once, and then peels the tape away to unwind the bandage from around his wrist. He holds it, palm upward, so that Clint can see, and doesn’t move away when Clint bends in close.

“It’s from a red tailed hawk,” Clint says, and looks at Coulson, who merely nods. “How…?” Clint tries to think how to ask.

“I asked for the deadliest,” Coulson says, watching Clint.

“Why did you…?” Clint half asks, and he’s holding Coulson’s arm now, just above the tattoo.

“Because I want to keep you,” Coulson says with only a slight hesitation in his voice. “Because I want your mark on me, even if I don’t get to keep you.”

Clint’s throat is locked up tight around something he doesn’t remember how to say. He looks at Coulson, and Coulson must see something in his face, because his eyes go soft and he leans in and kisses Clint, his right hand moving up to cradle the back of Clint’s neck, and Clint does something he’s been wanting to do, he just lets his head fall back into Coulson’s palm, and the kisses are good, they warm him, but the feel of Coulson’s hand curled around his neck is stunning, literally, Clint is stunned by how good it is, how it makes him feel, soft and safe and calm all at once. He makes a small sound into Coulson’s mouth, and Coulson nips once at his lower lip and pulls away, but he doesn’t move his hand, like he knows how much Clint needs to be held like that.

“Okay?” Coulson asks, once Clint has managed to tip his head up again.

“Yes,” Clint says, and looks at the tattoo on Coulson’s wrist again. He still feels the tight clench of something he almost doesn’t recognize lodged in his throat, but he says what he can. “It’s gorgeous. I love it.”

Coulson’s brows arch in surprise for a moment, and then he’s smiling at Clint, his expression lit with pleasure, his eyes warm. “So do I,” he says quietly. He doesn’t seem surprised when Clint pulls the gauze from the bag and wraps it back up, just lets Clint do it. When it’s taped in place, Clint rolls down Coulson’s cuff and buttons it.

When Coulson leans in again, Clint thinks he’s going to kiss him, but he just murmurs close to Clint’s ear: “Did you even know, while you were doing that, that you’re naked except for the belt, Clint?” It’s a serious question, Clint can tell.

Any answer he gives will be telling, at least in some small way.

Clint finds himself unwilling to lie. “I… didn’t think of it. I don’t think of the belt as being naked,” he finds himself admitting, helpless to stop it once the words well up into his mind.

Coulson brushes his lips across the hinge of his jaw. “I like to think I’m a patient man, but even my control is finite. Go get dressed, before I bend you over something.”

Clint shivers and nods and goes to get dressed, aware of Coulson watching him the whole time, aware of the way that makes his skin prickle with a sliver of excitement he can’t tamp down.

Clearly he needs to be doing something, anything, that isn’t thinking.

The cafeteria isn’t as deserted as Clint would have guessed this time of the morning. It isn’t full, but there seem to be about as many people in it as there had been last time.

Coulson says, “We overlap shifts. New people come on duty every two hours. This place is always busy.”

One of the not-waitstaff presents them with menus; Clint goes with pancakes, while Coulson has fruit and granola with yogurt. Clint tries to avoid considering that with disgust, but he can almost feel Coulson laughing at him, though his face is perfectly bland when Clint looks at him.

The pile of pancakes Clint gets is nearly as big as his head, and he doesn’t waste time on them. They’re ridiculously good, and it’s been a long time since Clint left good food sitting on a plate, but they’re just too much. “Christ, who thinks this is the serving size for one person?” Clint asks.

Coulson lets out a brief chuckle. “It’s more or less SHIELD policy that you get as much as you want, even if that’s sometimes more than you need. And you’re no lightweight, but you should see some of the Security Agents.”

Clint guzzles coffee.

“Still, you probably ate twice what anyone else would have. At least, anyone who wasn’t a specialist or an asset.” Phil shrugs one shoulder in an elegant little roll of motion. “The server would have noted on your order that you’re a specialist.”

“And that means I get extra food?” Clint asks curiously.

“Specialists and assets sometimes end up on missions that don’t let you eat reliably for a few days. And just in training and ranges, you burn more calories than most people. The kitchen staff always assumes that a specialist or an asset just got back from a mission, and attempt to feed them up immediately.” Coulson’s eyes are laughing, though his expression is still bland. “You’ll get used to it.”

Clint sips at his coffee a little more sedately now that he’s downed a cup. “It makes a weird kind of sense. Seems like a waste of food.”

“It doesn’t go to waste,” Coulson says. “We have dogs.”

Clint tries to decide if Coulson is fucking with him, but just can’t tell. “You’re fucking with me,” he decides finally.

Coulson just looks at him.

“Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll ask Hill,” Clint sulks.

The corner of his lip twitches, but Coulson just pushes his bowl of bleh away, and asks, “Are you done with your coffee? Kennet mentioned he’d done some modifications on a handgun for you.”

Clint vaguely remembers that, and immediately drains what’s left in his coffee cup. “Although I think we told him six, and with the armor, it’ll be only three.”

“I don’t think so,” Coulson says.

Clint arches his brows.

“Fury and I watched the video of you on the specialists range. Fury sincerely didn’t want to be as impressed as he was.” This time Coulson actually smiles faintly. “You were amazing. I want you to have two guns. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll let you take and use the bow any time it’s feasible, but sometimes it’s just not going to be possible, and when that happens, I want you as armed as I can make you. We’ll find a holster that will work with the vest.”

“I can actually shoot with both hands,” Clint says. “I mean, long guns are all two-handed weapons, really, and I’m never going to be as good with my right hand as I am with my left, but I can hit what I’m aiming at.”

Coulson stands up. “Show me on the range,” he says, and Clint falls into step beside him.

“I don’t usually do it,” Clint says when they’ve been walking for a minute or so. “I mean, not including life or death situations. Wearing a gun on each hip tends to look… cocky.”

“And you’re never cocky,” Coulson says drily.

Clint huffs out a laugh. “I mean, Capiro can pull it off. You just have to look at those guns to know he’s equally good with either hand. I’m not equally good. I’m just above average with my right hand.”

“I’m interested in your definition of ‘above average,’” Coulson says. 

“Better than what most cops have to qualify as sharpshooters. Probably better than what you would have had to qualify as a sharpshooter in the Marines. But nowhere near what I can do with my left. If my target is within twelve hundred yards or so, I’m not worried, and really, with a handgun, you could theoretically hit something a mile and a half away, but the bullet loses so much of its momentum that hitting it isn’t synonymous with killing it.” Clint thinks for a minute. “I wonder how far Capiro can shoot with those cannons. The muzzle velocity would be lower, but the pure stopping power of that amount of lead has to make up for some of it.”

“Capiro also does swords,” Coulson says. 

Clint looks at him.

“I don’t know the exact range on his guns, but overall, Capiro is a close range fighter. He prefers swords and knives, recognizes that that isn’t always an option, and carries the guns for when it isn’t,” Coulson says.

“So he’s one of the guys that you use when they’ve got to be dropped directly into the shit,” Clint says.

“Depending on what the shit is, yes,” Coulson says. “He’s also probably at least as good as you at getting into and out of places. If we end up infiltrating Hydra compounds, he’ll be on the short list.”

“How do you know? About what Capiro can do, I mean?” Clint asks.

“He used to be an asset. One of the things I do is decide when someone is overqualified to be an asset. Unless there is a particularly good reason not to do it, that person gets reassigned as a specialist.”

“And you do that because you spend a lot of time training with the assets?” Clint asks.

“Because I can beat most of our assets in a variety of combat scenarios,” Coulson says. “When one of their actual trainers thinks it’s time, I’m usually the one they call in for an opinion.”

“So assets that can beat you get to be specialists,” Clint says, amused and impressed at once; he remembers how fast Coulson’s gun had been in his hand, though, and the amusement fades a little even as his chest tightens with something he doesn’t have words for.

“Not always me,” Coulson says, and holds the door of the range open for Clint to precede him. “Some things I can’t do. But I know what most of the specialists can do, so if I can’t address a specific skill set, I can find the specialist who can.”

“How many jobs do you have, Coulson?” Clint asks.

Coulson chuckles. “I couldn’t really tell you. I’m the one that does what needs to get done that Fury and Hill don’t have the time for, and that includes a lot of things. The biggest thing I do is track and analyze problems or potential problems and address them before they become catastrophic. I should have been on top of the submissive disappearances years ago. Someone should have passed that on to me, and didn’t. But that doesn’t excuse it. I should have been monitoring it myself.” Coulson sounds grim, but not like he’s beating himself up over it; Clint thinks Coulson is too practical to waste time on self-recrimination.

Clint thinks that’s probably true, but doesn’t actually blame Coulson for it. It had been a gradual thing. Nobody had known the numbers. And he thinks it’s also probably true that someone, someone not Coulson, had dropped the ball, hadn’t passed information upward when it became clear that it was a bigger problem than they could handle. Clint is glad he’s not that person. He has the idea that once the mess has settled, Coulson is going to have things to say to that person.

Agent Kennet isn’t at the counter, this early in the morning, but Clint still recognizes the man that is.

“You’re Duke, right?” Clint asks. “Is that Agent Duke?”

“Yep,” Duke says. “It’s hard to believe, but it is not actually a nickname.” He grins at Clint. “Are you here for the rifles or the handgun Kennet has been driving me crazy about for the last two days?”

“The handgun,” Clint says, grinning a little back. “I told him I was going to be busy for a little while.”

Duke turns and unlocks the cage. Clint leans over the counter to get a look inside, and realizes the room is close to warehouse-sized -- Clint can’t make out the far wall, and his eyes are sharp -- and it makes sense, there are a lot of people here that need a lot of weapons. It doesn’t make sense that any time Clint needs anything, it seems to take Kennet -- or Duke, in this case -- about sixty seconds to find it.

“Do you just have all my stuff sitting by the door?” Clint asks, genuinely curious.

Duke laughs. “Right now, almost. Any time we get a new asset or specialist and we’re still putting kits together for them, we keep them right up front, in secure lockers. Eventually we’ll issue you your full kit, and keep just the alternate stuff here, but you’ll always need to come here periodically for ammo and things that you use only occasionally, like the SIG 50. Even once you’ve been here a while, it shouldn’t take you long to get what you need. We keep the things the assets and specialists check out on near the front, though it might not be quite so near the front. You actually have about five lockers right now. Arrows apparently take up a lot of space.”

Clint shrugs a little. “That’s what I do,” he says.

Duke grins again. “Then we’ll find the space. Here.”

He hands Clint a Sig Sauer 1911. It’s a heavy gun, but not unreasonable for a .45. It’s got front and back sights, and a night sight, which is nice. Clint pops the clip and the slide, verifies that they’re loaded with the best bullets available for the size of the gun, and then just weighs it in his hand for a long moment. It feels right. No real drag in either direction. Kennet had said he’d done some modifications on it, but whatever they are, they’re not visible to the naked eye. Clint will have to ask him about them later. For now, he says, “Give me thirty rounds?”

Duke’s brows rise. “Is this not a full session?”

Clint looks at Coulson.

“A full training session is a hundred rounds with a ninety percent kill shots done at two hundred, four hundred, and six hundred yards.”

“Am I doing a full session?” Clint asks, careful that his voice does not imply that it would be a complete waste of his time.

“What’s your maximum range?” Coulson asks.

“I don’t know with this specific gun,” Clint says. “But with your average .45, I can reliably hit a kill zone one hundred out of one hundred times at about a mile. With my right hand, it’s more like twelve hundred yards.” He shrugs. “Those are field conditions, kind of in the middle range. I can shoot farther.” He shrugs. “A lot farther if I have to. Things like that are always subject to what you can see and what’s going on around you, though, especially if I’m close enough to need the handgun. On the range, I can probably hit two miles, but that’s all it’s going to do. The bullet velocity at that range will pierce the target, but that’s about all it will pierce. There’s no real point to testing that far out when the force of impact is going to be so diminished as to be pointless.”

“Which doesn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t like to see you actually do it,” Duke says.

“It’s a waste of time, but I’ve got the time if you need to see it to believe it. I’d rather practice with something closer to what will be useful in the field, if I’m going to do the full session. But not at two- four- or six hundred yards, Phil,” he says, looking at Coulson. “That’s a waste of my time on a huge scale.”

“Why don’t you do ten out of ten at two miles, just so Agent Duke can hang the target up and watch everyone kill themselves trying to duplicate it, and then we’ll do a hundred with your left hand at a mile and a hundred with your right hand at twelve hundred yards,” Coulson says.

Clint agrees.

Agent Duke seems to take great pleasure in setting the distance and weapon type on the target by computer, apparently so no one can claim it’s faked. Once he’s prepped the range, Clint steps up to the line and says, “This is a gun I’ve never fired before, just for the record,” and snaps off ten rounds with about two seconds between each shot. Duke reels the target in, cackling with laughter as it gets close enough to read. Clint already knows what it says -- five in the head, five in the heart -- but he finds himself grinning a little anyway, just because Duke seems so thrilled.

“Kennet said you were the best sniper he’d ever seen,” Duke says, and tears off the target. “I believed him, he isn’t prone to exaggeration, but those skills don’t always cross over to handguns.” He lays the target out across the counter. “I’ll pin that up later. You go ahead with what you’re doing.”

So Clint goes through several boxes of ammo, breezing through with his left hand, and then working a little harder with his right. He doesn’t miss, but his right arm is a little heavy with exertion afterward. Pulling with a bow on his left is always going to make that his dominant side, no matter how many one handed pull ups and push ups he does with his right arm.

It doesn’t take as long as it could have. Duke and Coulson both load clips for him while he’s shooting, so there’s no lag in between clips.

Duke says, “These aren’t impossible distances on the range, but I’d have said they were pretty close to impossible in the field.” Duke shakes his head. “If I hadn’t seen you do ten of ten at two miles, I’m not sure I’d believe it.”

“This is what I do,” Clint says simply. “Tell Kennet he can modify five more just like this one, and I want to talk to him about the mods.” He switches out his sidearm; the holster is adjustable, so the size isn’t an issue. He turns his previous sidearm over to Duke, and they trade loaded clips as well, Duke’s brows arching a little at the number of clips Clint has on him. “Tell him I need one more soonest, and a holster that holds one on each hip, and then the other four I’ll rotate out in practice.”

“He’ll probably do it today,” Duke says. “He’s really just been waiting for you to show up and test it out.” He waves a hand at the two mile target. “He’ll be unbearable for a week or so.” But Duke is grinning.

Clint turns away from the range and discovers about fifty people standing behind him. It isn’t that he’d been unaware that he was drawing a crowd; it’s that he hadn’t been aware of how big that crowd actually is. The hair on the back of his neck prickles a little at the unpleasant surprise, but part of him isn’t surprised. His brain is making associations. The range has been a safe space for him, even with onlookers. He tells himself he’ll be more aware, but there’s no point in getting bent out of shape about it now.

“Some day,” Coulson murmurs close to Clint’s ear, “I’m going to get them to close down the range while you hit your absolute limit with your right hand, so I can fuck you right after you do it, and you’ll only have one arm to hold yourself up.”

“You’re a fucker,” Clint breathes, surprised and turned on at once that Coulson would even say something like that in a public venue, sure that Coulson can hear him, sure that Coulson knows why.

It’s uncomfortable to try to get hard in a cock cage. It doesn’t hurt, exactly; it’s not even unpleasant. It’s just very, very present, the kind of thing you can’t draw your attention away from, and it feeds on itself. The more you focus on it, the more your cock tries to get hard. The feedback loop can go on for a long fucking time.

“Incentive,” Coulson says, with that almost subliminal tone of amusement.

“Fucker, fucker, fucker,” Clint mutters, and is a little disappointed when Coulson doesn’t laugh. Then he adds, “Sir,” and Coulson chuckles, and Clint is confused about why it pleases him so much, but is still pleased, and… and he’s okay with it, enough, in his head, that he doesn’t feel the need to worry over it.

Hill, Clint notices, is standing near the front of the crowd, waiting with what looks like infinite patience, for Clint to be done. Coulson sees her at the same time as Clint does, and they make their way over to her. People are already dispersing, some of them in a hurry, like they don’t want to be around whatever is going down in Coulson and Hill’s presence. Clint smirks a little, because he isn’t worried, but he thinks it’s smart of _them_ to be worried.

“It’s early for range time; I thought you had him scheduled for peak?” Hill asks.

“I do, and he’ll be here. We just ended up waking earlier than expected, and came for a sidearm the Quartermaster modified for him,” Coulson says. “Do we have news?”

“We have a lot of information to sift through still, but what we also have is a tentative timeline. Fury wants to move on this as quickly as we can; we’ll implement as soon as our assets are able to pass on whatever they can find out.” She cocks her head a little. “There won’t be much for you to do there, but drop by the war room when you get the chance. The progress with the information from Hale has been impressive.”

Coulson gives her a nod, but doesn’t actually say anything else.

She offers her hand to Coulson, fingers curled into a holding gesture, and he holds his palm out. She drops seven discs into it.

Clint blinks at them, surprised, and Coulson considers them. “Blacklight,” he says. “Attempting to maintain control of the situation through disarmament. Eight-on-one odds. What else?”

“Protecting the lives of the six other men Blacklight had drugged by recognizing the inconsistencies in the situation,” Hill says. “It’ll be days before the drugs are out of their systems, but they’re going to make it.”

“At least one of them didn’t,” Clint says quietly.

“Through no fault of yours,” Hill says. “And even him, you tried to save, when you took the gun away. You could just have easily taken out everyone present with a gun in your hand, that much is obvious from what I just saw, but you didn’t. You tried to control the situation, and six men survived because you succeeded to some extent.” Her voice is almost gentle. “I don’t know more than a handful of people that would have tried to control and maintain that situation the way you did. Most of them would have used the gun, Barton.”

Clint feels himself flush faintly.

Hill nods, as though satisfied that he gets it. “The information you obtained from Hale, and the idea of infiltrating the submissives Hydra is holding to gather essential intel. I don’t know what the last one is for.” She looks at Coulson. “Fury said it was something the two of you had discussed yesterday, and that he’d decided provisionally to grant your request.”

Coulson’s brows arch slightly, but he merely nods. Then quirking a smile, he says, “He really is going to jingle like a belly dancer if he keeps this up.”

Hill grins. “He’s going to end up getting a tag for getting the most tags anyone has ever managed in less than three days. Hell, I might suggest it.”

Clint is still feeling a little flushed, but he’s also kind of cautiously proud. He doesn’t have much experience at it, not in conjunction with other people's expectations of him, and isn’t sure how to respond. It crosses his mind that he’d have two more tags if Coulson were allowed to give out tags for Clint fucking him, and his flush deepens as his cock stirs in the cage again.

Coulson slides the discs into his coat pocket -- Hill’s brows rise a little as though in surprise, but she doesn’t say anything -- and asks, “Anything else?”

“Maybe,” Hill says, frowning a little. “I know Sitwell is a friend of yours. Can you find out for me if he intends to formally request Maxwell as an asset or a junior agent?”

Coulson cocks his head. “I can ask. You think you can place him somewhere better?”

Hill looks a little shifty-eyed. “If he has no plans to do it, I’ll put in for him myself,” she says. “But I’m not planning on poaching, so don’t mention that to Sitwell, okay?”

“He’d step aside for you if he knew you wanted Maxwell,” Coulson says. “It wouldn’t even upset him.”

“I know,” Hill says. “But after Marley, I won’t do that to him.”

They both look down, like there is something about that that makes it so they can’t stand looking at each other. Clint could ask Coulson later, but he’s pretty sure he already understands.

“I’ll find out,” Coulson says. “Clint needs to write a report for him anyway, so I’ll see him today.”

Hill grins a little. “I’ll let you know when the next boatload of tags come in for your specialist,” she says. “I know he’s got at least one more coming from Armory.”

“What would the Valkyries even issue tags for?” Clint wonders.

“Valkyries?” Hill asks.

Coulson smiles faintly. “The Armory staff. Apparently they’re impressive enough to rate a pet name.”

Hill laughs. “Well, they like him, too. They want to tag him for his part in creating the armor for the sub Hydra masks.”

“When was the last time the Armory gave out a tag?” Coulson asks, looking genuinely curious.

“I wondered the same thing, so I looked it up. It was nine years ago, and the award was classified. It didn’t even list the recipient.”

Coulson blinks.

Clint blinks, too, but his chest is oddly warm. He adores the Valkyries.

Coulson says, “I’d try to track it down, but if you can’t get to it at your clearance, I won’t be able to get to it with mine. Still, I would really like to know the details on that.”

“I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” Hill says. She turns to Clint and gestures at the paper target that Duke is currently pinning to the board behind the counter. “I got here late, so I missed the action. What gun?”

“Sig 1911 .45,” Clint says. “Agent Kennet modified it, but whatever he did, I can’t see it, so it’s internal.”

“That’s a big damned gun,” Hill observes. “You’re not worried about it wearing you out in the field?”

“My bow pulls at ninety pounds,” Clint says. “My primary gun hand could hold up the 1911 all day. My other hand is weaker, but I’m unlikely to use it as much.”

“You’ve worked on endurance training for it?” Hill asks.

“More one handed push ups and pull ups and arm curls than anyone in the world wants to do,” Clint confirms drily. “It’s just never going to be as strong as my left. The accuracy is still great, but my range isn’t as good; I’m pretty confident that the arm strength isn’t going to be a factor. No matter how many clips I can manage to carry, I’m going to run out before the weight or the kick of the gun start to get to me.”

“A .45 seems like an odd choice for you,” she says, shrugging a little.

“I didn’t pick it,” Clint says. “I don’t care what my sidearm is; I can work whatever I’m given, as long as I have time to familiarize myself with it ahead of time. My focus is on long guns and my bow.”

She nods a little if that makes sense to her. “Is there anything they’re telling you they can’t get you?” she asks. “Because I can make arrangements.”

“No, but I’m not being picky just yet. I’ve got what I need for now, and I’ll need to run a few missions before I figure out exactly what will work best for me for what SHIELD wants from me. I appreciate the thought though.” And Clint does appreciate it, though it seems odd for her to offer, with Coulson right there.

She nods again. “Coulson could probably arrange it anyway. Is it rifles at the range today?”

“Yeah, they just got some Sako TRG’s I asked for. I’ll take one for a spin. Why all the sudden interest?” Clint keeps his tone as careful as he can, but he is acutely curious about the answer.

“It’s not all that sudden. I just haven’t had much time to touch base with you.” She glances at Coulson. “I was pretty sure Coulson was never going to run a specialist again.” Her face is serious, and she doesn’t seem to care that Coulson is standing right there listening. “Mostly I just want to warn you not to fuck it up.”

That Clint can understand. “Not planning on it,” he says.

“Good.” She sketches out a little salute aimed at both of them. “I’ll be at the range later. I want to see it for myself.”

“It’s not that impressive,” Clint says. “The range is made up of ideal circumstances. I can do almost anything here. It’s what I do in the field that’s impressive, and most likely not many people will actually see me doing it; just the results.”

“I’ll be here anyway,” she says, and grins a little. “And next time you run one of the specialists’ ranges, I definitely want to be there. The video was pretty impressive, and they’ve got that place pretty well wired, but there were still things we could hear but not see on it.”

“I’ll make sure you get an invite,” Clint says, and can’t stop himself from being a little flattered.

“I’d better scram,” she says. “Fury gets cranky if I’m not right there to delegate to.”

“Ma’am,” Clint says, nodding, and Hill walks out of the range quickly, but not like she’s actually hurrying. Just like she naturally moves quickly. Clint turns to Coulson, who is watching him with his mostly bland expression in place. “What was that?” he asks.

“She likes you,” Coulson says. “That was more small talk than I’ve heard her engage in with anyone in at least two years.”

Clint considers that, boggled. “I put a gun to her head,” he says.

“And you treat her like a peer,” Coulson says. “She doesn’t have many peers. She’s got a couple of specialists that she is fairly close to; Blacklight was one of them. And there’s me. A few department heads, but even then, her relationships with them are mostly cordial. She’s got even fewer peers that don’t need her, in some way or another. I think she’s interested in the fact that you’re happy to engage with her, but you don’t seem to want or need anything from her.”

“Why would I?” Clint asks. “I have you.”

“She outranks me,” Coulson says, though his lips are a tiny bit curved. “Most people try to cultivate her good opinion.”

“I’m not all that interested in anyone’s opinion except yours,” Clint says truthfully.

“That’s just another reason she likes you,” Coulson says. “How are you feeling? Tired?”

Clint glances at his wrist and realizes he doesn’t have a watch for the first time. He glances at the range clock, and sees it’s just after ten. “No, not tired. Where would I get a watch?”

“Any special thing you want or need it to do?” Coulson asks.

“No. Just something to tell time with.” Coulson’s brows arch a little. “Maybe a temperature gauge?” Clint offers hesitantly.

“Just requisitions, then,” Coulson says. “Why a temperature gauge? I would have thought you’d want something advanced enough to help you do your job.”

“I don’t need anything advanced to do my job, except for the weapons themselves,” Clint says. “And a temperature gauge because I mostly know my limits, know when I’ve been out too long in inclement weather and it might compromise the shot, but sometimes I push myself. That isn’t something I should do unless I have no choice. So a watch with a temperature gauge built in should let me monitor both climate and length of time spent in that climate, so I’ve got something concrete to tell me when it’s time to pack it in and use a secondary place and time.”

“I’ll put in the request; we’ll probably be able to pick it up some time today,” Coulson says. “In the meantime, how do you feel about narrating a report for me about your adventures in Norway?”

“I feel like it sounds boring, but you’re going to make me do it anyway,” Clint grumbles.

“But you’ll get to see my office,” Coulson offers.

“Is there something special about your office?” Clint asks, but doesn’t resist when Coulson turns and heads out of the range.

“It’s got a comfortable chair and a ficus,” Coulson says.

“Joy,” Clint says drily.

The offices are on the same floor as the giant foyer, Clint finds out, and the day outside looks so bright and warm that he gazes over his shoulder at the windows until they’re out of sight. “When do you think I might get outdoor range time?” Clint asks.

“Probably not until after our current primary mission is settled, unless Hardison needs you to have it for the specialized arrows,” Coulson says. “It’s not that we don’t have the time, really. It’s more like Fury will want to be able to put his hands on anyone he’ll be using immediately, as soon as the intel is in.”

Clint sighs, but can’t really argue the logic. “Do you know who it’ll be?”

“I’ve got a list going,” Coulson says. “When it comes down to it, Fury will have me making those decisions. I know our assets and specialists better than anyone.”

“And you’re still on the list,” Clint says, not a question, but not something he can make himself sound anything but unhappy about, either, though he doesn’t quite feel that same itch to kill that he had before. It’s Coulson’s job. It’s Clint’s job, too. He would hate it if Coulson curtailed parts of his job; he can’t make himself be that much of a hypocrite. But. “Don’t you think you might be a resource SHIELD can’t really afford to lose?”

“It still depends on how it needs to be done,” Coulson says. “We’ll send in all stealth and black ops if we can manage it. It just might not be possible at every location.”

“How are you going to figure that out?” Clint asks.

“Because I know some of the layouts, especially of some of the bigger compounds, and a lot of the smaller ones are pretty similar from what intel we’ve been able to gather. Some of them just won’t have a stealth option.” Coulson glances over at Clint. “Don’t worry about it yet. I might have to go, but Fury might have me coordinating the operation instead.”

Clint wonders if it’s possible to get close enough to Fury without Coulson right there to make that suggestion.

Coulson stops in front of an office door marked with a poster of knitting cats.

Clint stares at it, weirdly mesmerised. “Wha…?” he asks.

“Sitwell thinks he’s funny,” Coulson says wryly, and gets his retinas scanned so they can go in. “Your tags will let you access my office,” he says casually. “Whether I’m in it or not.” That sounds less casual, but Clint isn’t sure what it means.

The room is actually strangely homey, especially relative to Coulson’s apparent complete indifference to their actual quarters. The furniture is all warm, rose toned wood, including a leather couch that looks like it might be good to nap on. The chair behind Coulson’s desk is probably an antique, all leather and padded armrests. It looks almost like a wingback chair, except it’s got wheels. His file cabinets are made out of the same rose tone wood as his desk, and there is indeed a ficus in the corner. There is also some kind of trailing vine plant that stretches over the tops of all four filing cabinets with a few tendrils spilling down one side. There are bookshelves built into the walls, stuffed full of not just books, but also of interesting _things_ , a turtle that looks like it’s carved out of bone, a piece of blue quartz, uncut and beautiful in a wild and prickly kind of way, an ornately carved Chinese dragon made of jade, an oddly fluffy owl sitting on one of the top shelves, as if perched there, ready to swoop down on you.

There are also weapons everywhere Clint looks. They are cleverly concealed as part of the decoration, but Clint is sure that the set of crossed daggers with ivory hilts and the Claymore fitted into one of the lower shelves are perfectly functional weapons. He wonders how many guns Coulson has in this room. He suspects Coulson’s letter openers are razor sharp.

Coulson flips on an electric kettle, glances at Clint, and says, “I’m willing to bet you’re not a hot tea person, but if you give me three chances, I bet I can change your mind.”

Clint is bizarrely intrigued, both by the request and by the room, so he says, “Sign me up,” and slips the quiver and bow off his back so that he can sit down on the leather couch, which turns out to be a lot softer than it looks.

Coulson turns his computer on -- it’s something that Clint is sure is a computer, but that looks so advanced that he doesn’t feel at all confident about doing anything even as simple as checking his email on it -- and waters the ficus and the viney plant, and then dribbles water into a small forest of cacti on a side table Clint hadn’t seen.

“You should get a bonsai tree,” Clint says, because bonsai trees are cool looking, and it seems like something Coulson would like.

“Not enough time to tend it,” Coulson says, actually looking a little wistful about it. “You should get one and tend it for me.” He’s smiling when he says it, but it doesn’t sound like he’s joking either.

Clint wonders where one would get a bonsai tree. Coulson will know. “You get me one, and I’ll do everything else,” Clint agrees, and Coulson’s eyes gleam warmly at him.

Coulson doesn’t try to sit down to work until the electric kettle is boiling, then he opens a drawer under the kettle and asks, “Do you have any idea at all what kind of tea you might like?” It sounds like the first question in a survey, and Clint really considers it.

“Not peppermint,” Clint says. “And nothing that tastes like grass.”

“How do you feel about oranges?” Coulson asks.

“I have a great relationship with oranges,” Clint smirks, and Coulson’s lips quirk and he shakes his head a little, like he finds Clint exasperating but somehow lovable anyway, which just makes Clint smirk more.

Coulson takes out a small plastic bag and a round ball, and taps some of the reddish colored tea from the bag into the ball. Then he closes the ball and drops it into a mug that looks hand made. He pours water over it, and Clint is immediately interested in the smell.

“What kind of sweet drinks do you like?” Coulson asks, apparently perfectly serious, which makes Clint have to really think about the answer.

“Most soda is too sweet for me. I like a little sugar in my coffee in the morning, but if I drink it later in the day, I usually drink it black. It’s unusual for me to have a lot of caffeine anyway. It doesn’t affect my accuracy, but I have to compensate, which is sometimes more trouble than it’s worth. I like most fruit juices, but again, a lot of them are too sweet for me to drink a lot of. Strangely enough, I will drink iced sweet tea all day. I like smoothies and chocolate milk on an occasional basis. I don’t drink alcohol that often, but when I do, it’s beer or bourbon, so nothing really sweet there. Is this helping you at all?”

Coulson pulls out a little jar and a pair of tiny tongs, and plucks out an honest-to-God sugar cube out of the jar and drops it into Clint’s mug.

Clint notices that Coulson is concentrating on Clint’s tea, and not making himself a cup. “Aren’t you having any?”

“Yours has to steep for six minutes,” Coulson says absently. “Mine only has to steep for two.” He puts the sugar jar and tongs away, and brings out another mug and something that looks like a tiny rubber ducky out. He replaces Clint’s tea and pulls out another baggie, and opens the ducky’s bottom and shakes tea into it. It clicks shut, and Coulson puts his tea away as well, and takes out an oval shaped shallow dish, which he puts next to the kettle. He puts the rubber ducky into his own mug, and pours water over it. The ducky bobs to the top and spins in a lazy circle. Clint is maybe more charmed by Coulson’s tea-ducky than is really reasonable. Coulson glances at the clock, and uses the chain attached to the ball to pull it out of Clint’s mug. He lets it drip over Clint’s mug for a little while, and then puts it on the shallow dish. A minute or so later, he plucks the rubber ducky out of his own mug, squeezes it lightly, and puts it next to the ball of Clint’s tea.

He puts his own mug on the corner of his desk, and walks Clint’s over to him. It smells like oranges and faintly like some other kind of spice, not cinnamon, but something kind of like that. Clint takes it; it looks about like he supposes hot tea is supposed to look like.

“It should be at a drinkable temperature,” Coulson tells him. “One of the benefits of having a brew that has to steep so long.”

Clint takes a cautious sip, and it’s still very hot, but he takes another sip anyway, because it’s interesting. The orange flavor isn’t as strong as the smell had been, and he can taste the tea in it. He can’t name the spices in it, but they make the orange taste brighter in contrast. The sugar Coulson had added is just enough to make it very mildly sweet. “So, what is it?”

“It’s a rooibos tea with orange peel and a blend of spices,” Coulson says. “Rooibos is a red, mild tea. Good for people that don’t know what they like in a tea yet. Do you like it?”

“It tastes like a bedtime drink,” Clint says almost without thought. “Or a wintertime drink, when you can’t get really good oranges.”

“It can be both of those things,” Coulson says easily. “The question is, do you want to drink it now?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Clint says, not sure why his cheeks are heating. “Thank you.” Coulson looks pleased. “What did you get?” Clint asks.

“Honey sencha,” Coulson says. “It’s a type of green tea. It doesn’t taste like grass.”

Clint is dubious about any green tea not tasting like grass, but he isn’t going to argue with Coulson about it. His orange tea has cooled off enough now that he can take a big drink, and it’s good, he likes it, but he feels like it should definitely be a night time drink. “Do we have this at home?” Clint asks.

“Once I get things moved over from my quarters, we’ll have a small selection,” Coulson say. He looks a little wry. “Honestly, I spend more time here than I ever did in my quarters, so most of it lives here. Do you like cream in coffee? What about spicy foods?”

“Not usually, and I love spicy food,” Clint says. “Can we take this kind home? I really feel like it’s a night time drink.”

Coulson looks at him for a second, lips slightly parted, eyes just a little wide. The expression is barely there for a moment, but Clint feels a strange kind of echo of it, like he knows what had surprised Coulson. Clint is asking for things that he wants for their _home_. Coulson says, “Of course we can,” and then turns toward his computer. He clicks a few things with his mouse, and then turns a small microphone toward Clint.

“When did you get to Norway,” he asks, and sits back with his own cup of tea; apparently the computer is going to record this. Then what, Coulson will type it up? That seems on the inefficient side for Coulson.

“March the 8th, 2016,” Clint says, and stands up to walk around Coulson’s desk, and yes, the recording is transcribing itself onto the screen. Clint grins a little and goes back to sit down and sip at his own tea.

What Clint had expected to be boring as hell, turns out to be kind of entertaining. Coulson asks good questions, and doesn’t curtail Clint’s answers. That means some of the time, Coulson has to ask more questions to clarify things in Clint’s answers, but Coulson doesn’t seem to mind. It starts out a little stiff, but rolls into something like telling a story to an extremely interested and interactive audience, and by the time Clint is telling about the ice tunnel with the river and losing his bow, Coulson is looking more than a little entertained himself.

It takes them more than two hours to get through it, because Coulson especially wants lots of details about Clint’s encounters with SHIELD agents, and also details about the cartel meeting that Clint had wiped out. While he talks about the cartels, Coulson takes a few notes by hand, though it doesn’t slow down the speed of his questions.

To Clint’s surprise, the report doesn’t stop the second Coulson had apprehended Clint. It goes all the way through, including all the sexual details (not in graphic detail, but still), and ends when Clint had walked through the security of the parking garage into SHIELD headquarters.

When Coulson clicks the program to stop it, Clint asks, “Do they really want to know all that?” Meaning, mostly, about the sex.

“On a recruitment mission, yes. It’s essential that we know exactly what works and what doesn’t. And in this case, it especially had to be detailed because I probably deserve a reprimand.”

Clint blinks. “For what?” he asks.

“For telling you that I was going to fuck you whether you agreed to work for SHIELD or not,” Coulson says. “Protocol doesn’t actually allow me to touch you unless we have a working agreement.”

Clint leans against the back of the couch. “But you _were_ going to, whether I agreed or not,” he says. He remembers it all too clearly to have any doubts.

“Yes,” Coulson says.

Clint isn’t sure how to respond to that; he isn’t even sure how he feels about it. “But you didn’t until after I agreed.”

“No. So I did not technically breach protocol. But I also didn’t quite follow protocol. It’s a gray area; Fury will decide whether or not to issue a reprimand, and whether it will be formal or informal.” Coulson looks at Clint seriously. “I would have done it, though, Clint. It would have been wrong, but I would have done it.”

Clint’s mouth is suddenly dry, and he is out of tea. His mind is kind of a buzz of confusion, and he should be pissed, but in reality he’s something else entirely. “Have you done it before?” he asks, keeping his voice deliberately steady.

“No,” Coulson says. “And I would have sworn before I saw you that I never would.” Clint believes him.

Clint’s mind continues to buzz, but his cock is trying to get hard in the cage, and there is no way that is an appropriate response to this information.

“Can I have more tea?” Clint asks.

“Of course,” Coulson says, and stands. “The same, or do you want to try a more day time tea?”

“Day time tea would be good,” Clint says, and then just watches as Coulson goes through the process, trying to think clearly about that night, but all the days and nights since then keep interfering. And this isn’t new information. Clint had known at the time what Coulson had intended; Coulson had told him. The only part he hadn’t known was that Coulson would be breaking the rules if Clint had not agreed, and Coulson had fucked him anyway.

And there’s something else, something truly fucked up, because Clint’s first reaction to the whole thing is jealousy. He isn’t angry or upset; he’d already known Coulson would have done it. What he wanted was to know that it was the first time. That Coulson didn’t tell the same thing to everyone he has recruited.

Clint wonders briefly if this is what Stockholm Syndrome feels like. Then he wonders if he really cares, if it is.

Things are _good_ here. To his best understanding of the definition, which Clint is willing to admit is probably dangerously skewed, he is _happy_. Coulson fits with him, even if Clint never tells him the whole truth. But he thinks about it. That he even thinks about it is something he would have believed to be impossible not even one week ago. Even if Clint never tells him, though, Coulson has made it very clear that he won’t ask for more than Clint is willing to give him, and perversely, that only makes Clint want to give him more.

He can’t actually tell yet, not everything; he can feel that he can’t. And maybe he never will. But this is still more than Clint has ever had, in every aspect of his life.

Clint, voice shaky, says, “Her name is Natalia Romanova, but you’ll never bring her in without me. And even then, she might kill me. I’ve never seen anyone fight hand to hand like her. She’s a killing machine with any kind of medium range firearm. She’s a spy and sometimes an assassin. If she’s already on your kill list, promise me you’ll let me try to bring her in.”

Coulson sinks down onto the couch beside Clint and puts a mug into his hands. Clint smells layers upon layers of spices.

“Why are you telling me this now?” Coulson asks quietly.

“Because I don’t care if it’s Stockholm Syndrome. I want to stay. So eventually you had to know. And now because you told me something about you that you didn’t want me to know, didn’t you?” Clint asks.

“Yes,” Coulson says. “I didn’t want you to know. But if things were going to be right between us, you needed to.”

Clint nods. “She’s like me, Coulson. Maybe she’s even a little worse. She’s been alone a long time. And you don’t let her get ‘handled.’ You find a way to make an exception, and you make sure she’s fitted with the kind of chastity harness that will hurt anyone who tries to touch her that way, one that doesn’t fit inside. She’s never said, but I know. She’ll never come in if you do it any other way.”

“Is she a sub?” Coulson asks.

“Yes, but she’s… she’s very broken. Find a way to keep her an asset, make it clear that she’s not to be touched, let her find her own handler, a real handler, so that she can have someone like I have you, but you’re going to have to let her choose. She’s a specialist, quality-wise, but she needs to be an asset long enough to change handlers and understand why things work the way they do. If you don’t do it like this, I’m telling you, she will slaughter dozens of your people to get away. You have to…” Clint pauses for a long moment, then looks at Coulson. “You have to handle her.”

Coulson’s brows wing upward in surprise. 

“She needs to see it when it works, and she trusts me as much as she knows how to trust anyone. Handle her until you can do all the tests and until she gets a chance to operate under any handler she wants to on a provisional basis. She’ll find someone, but you have to let _her_ do that.”

Coulson sighs. “Drink your tea before it gets cold; I want to know if you like it.”

Clint takes an immediate sip, and then another bigger drink. It’s all spices; he can taste the black tea, the foundation of the tea, but the rest of it is all spices, mixed and layered, and definitely a morning or daytime drink. Before he really realizes it, he’s emptied the cup and is just sort of looking into the bottom of it.

“It’s Indian chai,” Coulson says, faintly amused. “I take it you approve?”

“It’s-- It’s great,” Clint stammers. “I mean. It might be the best drink I’ve ever had.”

“The rooibos doesn’t have caffeine in it at all,” Coulson says. “So, you’re right, a good night time drink. The chai is caffeinated, but still not anywhere near what you’d get from a cup of coffee. Next we’ll see how you feel about Chinese or Japanese chai, but you seemed to like the spices in the rooibos, so I thought chai might appeal to you.”

“Are you trying to think of a way to tell me you can’t do this for her?” Clint asks, feeling it pressing at his chest. He’d given Coulson her _name_. He should have told him everything else, and only if he agreed, given her name.

“No,” Coulson says. “Fury won’t be happy, but Hill will approve it. We can’t do it now; rescuing the submissives has to be our priority. But when it’s done, you and I will go out alone and find her and ask her and explain what we can. And if she doesn’t want to come in, I’ll still take her name off the kill list, if it’s there, and put it on the recruitment list, with the caveat that you have to be the one to bring her in. The rest of the handlers are going to be pissed; let me guess, she’s gorgeous?”

“Breathtaking,” Clint agrees. “The kind of gorgeous men kill for and confide their secrets to and drape in diamonds and would hoard like treasure if they could. She’s also literally the most dangerous person I know. I can’t stress that enough, Phil. I don’t stand a chance against her hand to hand, and even with a handgun, she’d probably have me. She’s faster than I am. My only chance would be with the bow or a rifle, but she’s got a wicked sixth sense about when she’s safe. I would love to have her here,” Clint confesses. “I would love it if she could find a partner. She needs one more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“We’ll try. We’ll do everything we can, and we’ll make sure she understands that it’s up to her.”

“She might kill us both,” Clint says.

“I’m willing to risk my life for someone important to you, Clint,” Coulson says steadily. “And I’m willing to take her on as a specialist with no sexual agenda attached until she finds someone that fits with her. I just hope she’s more inclined toward paperwork than you are.”

“We make a dream team, Coulson, Nat and me,” Clint says. “Between the three of us, I don’t think there is much we couldn’t pull off.”

Coulson sighs. “I can feel myself losing more hair just thinking about it,” he says drily.

Clint leans in and kisses him. Just a peck, really, and he’s still not sure if it’s strange, or if Coulson thinks it’s strange (although Coulson does look mildly surprised), but it still seems like the thing to do. “Thank you,” he says.

“You’re welcome. We need to eat. I was thinking sandwiches at home?” Coulson asks. He takes Clint’s mug and his own through a small door that Clint had correctly assumed was a small bathroom, and washes the mugs in the sink.

“Fine with me,” Clint says. He doesn’t really feel like the cafeteria, anyway, still feels a little shaky about what he’s given away.

Coulson hangs their mugs to dry, and then opens the drawer. “We’ll take the chai, at least, so you can have it in the mornings if you want it. I’ll get more for my office.”

He tucks the plastic baggie in his coat pocket, and when he pulls his hand out, he’s holding Clint’s tags. He counts them visibly, then dips his hand back into his pocket to collect whichever ones had escaped. “Let’s do this here,” he says, and Clint knows why. Coulson wants to make sure Clint knows that he hadn’t tricked him, before, in front of Fury and Hill. Clint knows Coulson hadn’t already; Clint had been the one to dump the discs into his hand without thinking about it, right there in front of everyone.

But.

But it had been good.

And Coulson still won’t expect anything else. And Clint is confused about a lot of things, still, how he feels about Coulson definitely one of them, but he can see in his mind’s eye the way Coulson has looked every time, and there is something deeply compelling about being wanted like that, for what he is, for what Coulson thinks he is.

Coulson unlocks the collar and pulls it away to thread the new tags on it.

He holds it out to Clint, and Clint, almost without being able to stop himself, sinks down on his knees and lowers his head.

“Clint,” Coulson says, and it almost sounds like he’s in pain.

“Phil,” Clint says. “It doesn’t hurt me to give you this. I know you’ll still know that I can’t do some things, so it doesn’t hurt me to let you make me yours in the way that feels right to you.” He pauses. Coulson seems to understand it’s a pause, because he doesn’t speak and he doesn’t move to lock the collar around Clint’s neck. “I want to give you what I can,” Clint admits, sounding a little breathless to himself, a little wanting.

Several long seconds pass, and then Coulson is carefully looping Clint’s neck with the collar and locking it in place. Like he knows, somehow, the exact thing Clint needs, he pulls one hand up to cradle the back of Clint’s head, and Clint lets his head fall back into Coulson’s palm.

He sees Coulson’s face, a kind of possessive gratitude all mixed up with fierce want, and triumph, and genuine care, and it clenches in Clint’s chest and in his mind. “I’m going to take you home and fuck you now,” Coulson says in a low, rough voice.

“I’d be really disappointed if you didn’t,” Clint confesses, breathless still with the way his cock is trying to get hard in the cage again, and with the way it feels to be looking up at Coulson from his knees. He almost wants to stay, just for a few minutes, and look up like this, to feel like this, which had been a kind of honeymoon period that hadn’t lasted long with Trickshot, this feeling of being under, but not _held_ under.

Coulson says, “You look good there,” voice husky in a way that makes Clint shiver. Clint doesn’t know how to articulate how he feels about being here, so he says nothing. “Come on,” Coulson says finally, and tugs Clint to his feet by his elbow.

There is going to be a thing, apparently, about one or both of them undressing in the living room. As soon as the door closes behind Coulson, he’s shedding his suit coat and tie, and Clint follows his lead automatically, setting bow and quiver aside carefully, used to the armor now, so that he can get it off and on very quickly. He chooses to leave the bow, but unholsters his sidearm to take into the bedroom. When he glances up, Coulson is watching him -- he has his own sidearm in his hand, and is otherwise naked, his suit strewn across the couch -- in a way that makes Clint pause.

“You look,” Coulson says, and then takes a deep breath. “If I’d known what you’d look like naked with a weapon in your hand, I would have arranged for it to happen before.” Clint knows he’s seen it before, but he still understands.

“I’m wearing the belt,” Clint says, his cock pressing urgently against the inside of the steel of the cage.

“Clint, that belt only makes you more naked,” Coulson says, and Clint understands what he means even though it’s not quite the same for him. Clint understands what Coulson means about the gun, too; Coulson, naked with a gun in his hand, looks like murder porn, and the look on his face, the half-ravenous gleam of his eyes, doesn’t detract from that at all.

There is a weird domesticity to moving into the bedroom, both of them placing their respective weapons on their respective bedside tables, that makes Clint grin a little, wondering what it must be like for regular people, not with envy, but with an odd kind of pity.

“What do you think about riding me?” Coulson asks, as they meet at the foot of the bed, Coulson’s hands already on the lock. Clint breathes out heavily as Coulson frees his cock, and is immediately hard, and then breathes out hard again when Coulson nudges his thighs open and tugs the plug free of his hole. Even still, he’s a little tense about the suggestion.

He tells himself again that Coulson is not Trickshot, but that doesn’t magically erase that tension.

Coulson’s instincts are good though, either just because he’s Coulson, or because he’s that intuitive as a dominant. “I thought you might like the idea of taking it at your own pace,” he says, watching Clint. “Will you tell me what it is about it that worries you?”

Clint’s not surprised by Coulson’s reasoning, but he is surprised at being asked why. Coulson has steered clear of asking why, mostly. It’s the collar, Clint understands with a strange quiver of heat at the idea. That Coulson feels like he has the right to ask now, and while Clint mostly feels the same way, he also knows that Coulson won’t drag it out of him.

“I don’t remember all of it,” Clint says, carefully. “I remember how tired I was, and he had a thing, a little strip of hard leather, and if I stopped…” Clint shrugs a little. 

Coulson looks considering.

“Okay, come here,” Coulson orders, and Clint follows him around the side of the bed and moves onto it, Coulson’s hands directing him to sit down, facing the foot of the bed. Coulson slides in behind Clint, his hand closing on Clint’s cock lightly, barely any pressure at all, but Clint’s breath stills and catches anyway. “Let me tell you what I would want about that,” Coulson murmurs close to his ear, breath warm. “Because it’s a thing I want, Clint, and you told me that you would at least consider the things I need.”

Clint’s heart stutters a little in his chest, and he feels a little spike of fear strangely twisted up with gratitude and lust. Because Coulson is invoking that agreement, yes, but he isn’t going to make Clint tell more than he has, and isn’t going to just ignore it and do something else, he’s going to explain. He’s going to lay his want open for Clint, and there’s something about that idea that makes Clint relax a little so that he can feel Coulson’s chest pressed against his back. Slowly, feeling a little uncertain about it, Clint leans back enough to rest his head against Coulson’s shoulder. Coulson’s free hand comes up and drags through Clint’s hair, making his scalp prickle, relaxing him a little more. Then Coulson’s hand slides down to splay along Clint’s collar possessively, not with any pressure, but still with a sense that Coulson is _holding_ Clint there.

“Part of it you already know,” Coulson murmurs. “Part of it is just to watch you fight to take my cock, when I know how hard it is, and the way it stretches you out. Watching you do that, doing it for me yourself, not me doing it _to_ you, Clint, that’s something I want to see. I want to watch your face, and hear you yell and see the way your muscles bunch and twist and flex. I want to watch you work at it, and once you manage to get it all the way in, Clint, I want to watch you decide how to take it. I want to know if you’ll be slow and careful or if you’ll pound yourself onto my cock, I want to see it on your face when you find the right angle for your prostate, and I want to know if you’ll let yourself ride that angle, or if you’ll tease yourself with it. And I want to watch you get tired, Clint, I want to see you sweat, I’ll hold off as long as I can to see you start to tremble with the effort of it, and I won’t hit you with anything, but I won’t promise that I won’t _ever_ hit you with anything just because that’s something he did, because I’d like it, Clint, and I think you’d like it, too, but I won’t do it this time. You aren’t going to get tired the way you did with him, Clint, because you’re not fifteen anymore; you’ve got thighs and abs of iron, it won’t be the same kind of tired, it will be workout-tired, do you understand what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Clint breathes, and realizes his eyes are closed, and his cock is jerking in Coulson’s fist, and he does understand the difference between workout-tired and abuse-tired, and he can sort of see what Coulson is saying behind his closed eyelids and imagine how it could be good. “Will you touch me, when I…?” Clint asks, because it had been bad and if Clint hadn’t been able to stay hard, it had been worse.

“I doubt I’ll be able to keep my hands off of you,” Coulson says and brushes his lips along the side of Clint’s neck at the same time as he tightens his fist and drags it up Clint’s cock, making Clint shudder out a little moan. “Do this for me, Clint,” Coulson… Phil whispers. “Do it just because I want it.”

Clint shudders again, feeling the way his mind rolls away a little at the gentle demand of it, and just nods.

“Get up on your knees,” Phil says. “I’m going to make it easy this time, you remember how I make it easy, Clint?”

Clint does, and his cock throbs at the memory of being worked open a little bit at a time, and he’s on his knees before he’s consciously aware of even moving. Phil strokes his hands along Clint’s back and down the curve of his ass, fingertips ghosting across Clint’s hole, and Clint’s head drops down between his arms, tension draining out of him at being… being _handled_ , that he’s going to do what Phil says because Phil put his collar around Clint’s neck, Phil is Clint’s dominant, Clint is Phil’s, or so close to it that it doesn’t make a difference right now.

His mind is a glittering whirl of terror and elation.

The smallest of the glass dildos is very cool and very slick, and Clint doesn’t fight it at all, just lets it press him open, hardly any burn, but lots of slick friction. He drops to his elbows with his ass in the air without thought, and Phil strokes his back with one hand, warm and soothing, and presses the glass dildo into him again with the other. “Good, Clint,” he murmurs and Clint’s desire to be aroused, his want to want this, like this, is pressed abruptly down by actual arousal, twisting and taut at the pit of his belly and at the base of his spine. He rests his brow against his forearm and pants, and Phil says, “Fuck yourself on it, I want to see,” and Clint does, his body clenching around the dildo because of the feel, but more because of Phil’s voice, because he knows what to do, Phil is telling him what to do. He pushes himself onto it, and it’s rigid inside him in a way that flesh wouldn’t be, but there’s something good about that, something hot, and he arches until the glass bumps up against his prostate and jerks out a helpless, heated little sound.

He gasps a little when Phil tugs it free of him, surprise and dismay, but it’s only a few seconds before the next one is in place, cold again, and Phil presses it in a little too quickly, so that the drag inside Clint inches toward pain, but says, “Shh, you can take it,” when Clint whines, and Clint’s hands clench into sudden fists and his back arches obediently, and the world starts to narrow the way it does, the way Clint never lets it, and he rocks back onto it, stretching himself, without being asked because Phil is making it easy for Clint to take Phil’s cock, and Clint wants, he wants to make it easy for Phil, too.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” Phil tells him, and drives the dildo into him hard, angled so that Clint lets out a surprised shout of pleasure and presses back, and Phil growls, “That’s right, don’t make me wait,” like he knows everything Clint is thinking. Clint’s cock is full of dense want, and he could come like this, but he doesn’t know, hadn’t thought to ask Phil if he was allowed.

The dildo slides out of him, and then the next one is pressing against his hole, cold against Clint where he is very hot now, so that he shivers a little, and Phil just holds it there until Clint dimly realizes that he should do something, and pushes his ass back, feeling his hole stretch around the flare, and huffing out a rough breath as it eventually stretches him enough to get inside, and then Phil uses it roughly in him, and Clint hears himself whining softly but staying carefully still, and Phil says, “I can see your hole stretched around the glass, Clint, I can see how it looks when you clamp down on it. I want to fuck you, I want you to fuck yourself on me, are you going to do that for me?”

“Yes,” Clint gasps out, jerking back a little on the dildo just because something confused in his brain hears Phil saying ‘fuck yourself on me’ and is trying to obey even though Phil isn’t in him yet. “Phil,” he says, and doesn’t know what he intends to say, his body rolling with heat, his thoughts hazed with pleasure and all the rest, the things that have nothing to do with his body and everything to to do with the way that Phil’s voice crackles through his brain.

“You’re a good boy, Clint,” Phil says, and Clint arches, deeply aware of Phil’s hand splayed across his back, holding him, and comes without meaning to, without thought and without permission, and hears himself wrench out a sound that is helpless with both pleasure and panic.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, Phil, I…” Clint chokes out, and Clint feels the dildo tug free of his hole, and then Phil is in front of him, pressing him up to his knees on the bed, and Clint gives him a helpless, hopeless look, but Phil doesn’t look angry, Phil’s eyes are hot and his face is intent, but there is no anger there. He leans in close, holding Clint by the back of the neck in that way that makes Clint feel perfectly safe and relaxed.

“I’ll tell you if you’re not allowed to come, Clint,” Phil tells him, gaze so fierce that Clint can’t look away. “I won’t trick you that way. You’re allowed to come if you can, and the only thing you have to do is tell me that you’re going to, so that I can watch your face if I want to.” There is a little bit of a snarl to Phil’s voice, but Clint understands that it isn’t meant for him, and his relief is so profound that he can only gulp in air and nod his understanding, so that Phil knows that Clint will do whatever he says. Phil’s hand squeezes the back of his neck, and Clint moans a little. “Can you do it for me now, Clint?” Phil asks, voice a little taut, but not demanding. “Do you need the other dildo?”

Clint, more because he wants than because he’s sure, whispers, “I can do it now, I… I can take it.”

Phil’s eyes are sharp and dark, and he stands and pushes Clint down again, hand a little hard between Clint’s shoulder blades so that his ass is in the air. “Stay,” Phil says, and Clint shudders a little and stays, and he feels Phil press the syringe-thing into him, and is abruptly slick and full of wet. “Stay right where you are,” Phil repeats, his hands on Clint’s ass, pulling him open so that Clint’s face burns with hot humiliation and the pulsing, tidal lust that that kind of humiliation always brings with it.

Phil lets go and circles the bed, crawling up to lie on his back, and only when he’s settled, says, “Come here, Clint.”

Clint turns on his hands and knees. Phil is on his back, his cock deeply red and slick already with lube, and Clint crawls up to straddle him, his body already beginning to recover from his orgasm, his cock a little hard. Phil is gorgeous and terrifying, and Clint watches Phil circle the base of his cock with his hand and lift it.

“You can go as slow as you need to go,” Phil tells him. “As long as I feel like you’re trying, Clint. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Clint says hoarsely, and looks down between their bodies, positioning himself as well as he can. One of Phil’s hands lands around his hip and pulls gently downward, and Clint lets it, and Phil takes care of making sure they are lined up. Clint breaks out in goosebumps when the head of Phil’s cock bumps up against his hole, but he doesn’t stop. He braces his arms and lets his own weight pull him down, and Phil is so _wide_ , the head of his cock feels like a fist trying to work it’s way into him, and Clint presses down with his shoulders and spreads his legs wider and Clint is sweating even before he feels it really opening him up, and he’s still a little scared. 

“You can do this,” Phil murmurs, tugging gently at Clint’s hip. “Clint, this is going to be so good for me, watching you shove yourself onto my cock.” Phil’s voice is husky, and catches at the edges of Clint’s mind, and when he says that Clint can do it, Clint believes him, and when he says that it will be good for Phil, Clint wants that, and he lets the muscles in his thighs relax, and the rim of his asshole is a bright raw ring of pain, and Clint screams a little when it finally pushes all the way in, and then hears himself panting out a series of hoarse little cries. Phil’s face is hot with want, and he has both hands on Clint’s hips now; Clint straightens his back, and forces his major muscle groups to relax, automatic, something he’s trained himself forever to do, and as his thighs go loose, Phil’s cock is abruptly several inches deeper into him, and it hurts, but Phil’s head rocks back and he cries out in surprise and pleasure, Clint can see the look on his face, the naked and stunned arousal, and Clint thinks very clearly: _No one has ever taken that much of him at once before_ , and then, on the heels of that, _I want to be able to take him all at once._

He can’t do it now, wants to, but can’t, but he will sometime, when Clint is used to the size of him, when Phil uses him every day, Clint will be able to do that for him.

“Clint,” Phil gasps out, his hands hard on Clint’s hips, “God, Clint, you’re so good, that’s so good,” and Phil is just like he had said he had wanted to see Clint, flushed and a little sweaty, the muscles in his chest and belly stark and flexing, though he isn’t pushing up into Clint at all, is letting Clint set the pace like he said he would, because Phil is _not_ Trickshot, and Clint pulls off and rides back down, and it burns, it’s _hard_. Clint’s body tries to defend itself against the invasion, but Clint is fully hard again and he feels like his mind is both soft and very bright, like he’s _good_ , like Phil says, and he works himself up and then down on Phil’s cock, he isn’t sure how long, just until it stops feeling like it’s too much, and when he comes down again he lets his thighs loosen as much as he can, and he shouts at the new press and depth of a few more inches, and tears of pain trickle down his cheeks, but Phil’s hips jerk like Phil can’t help it and Phil’s face is taut and enthralled. Phil is watching Clint like Clint is the only thing in the world worth looking at, that look twists at Clint’s mind as much as it does his body, and Phil whispers, “Don’t hurt yourself, Clint, God, you feel perfect, you’re beautiful, but please don’t hurt yourself.”

“Phil,” Clint says, and it feels like the only thing he knows how to say, and he draws himself up Phil’s cock until only the head is inside, and it aches a little, aside from the actual pain, it aches in a way that makes him feel empty, like he’s made his own space for Phil, and now that he has it, he wants desperately for Phil to be in it. He slides down Phil’s cock, wet with lube that he knows is dripping out of his own ass, but it doesn’t matter, it makes the long slide easier, and then up, and then on the next stroke down lets his thighs go loose almost entirely. He feels it when Phil bottoms out, a bright arc of pain that shakes loose another hoarse cry, and he feels Phil’s hands drilling into his hips, and he feels Phil’s hips jerking upward, even as Phil closes a hand around Clint’s cock, and he comes at the same time, some kind of orgasm he’s never had before, something long and grinding, something that leaves him jerking out harsh, guttural sounds and hunched over, hands braced on Phil’s chest, something that lasts long after his cock stops dribbling come down his shaft, something so deeply, fundamentally necessary that he can feel himself weeping almost silently, that he’s never had this, that Phil had given it to him.

“Clint, oh my God,” Phil groans, and Phil’s face is dazed with pleasure, his eyes dark and Clint sees the need in them, not to come, though that is there too, but the need to have Clint like this, the need for Clint to do this for Phil even when it’s hard, especially because it’s hard, and Clint is mesmerised by it, like looking at Clint’s own need in a mirror, reversed but recognizable. “You’re alright, Clint?” Phil asks, gasps out, the look in his eyes almost crazed with lust, but still asking, needing to know _before_ , and Clint’s chest is flushed with warmth, not lust but something deeper.

“So good,” he says, his voice cracking and wrecked. “You’re so good, I want to be good, Phil.”

“Clint, you’re good, you’re so good on my cock, Clint, you’re so good taking me like that, taking my cock so hard and so fast, you’re perfect, Clint, I promise.” Phil’s voice is strained, but Clint can see the truth, can see how good Clint is on Phil’s face. “Can you ride me, now, Clint? Are you too sore to ride me?”

Clint is sore, he is so sore, but he is so good, Phil is so good inside him and he wants, still, wants to be good, and he bunches his thighs and leaves his hands braced on Phil’s chest and works himself up Phil’s cock, still slick, Phil must have used the whole bottle, and then lets himself be dragged back down Phil’s incredible length by his own weight.

“Jesus, Clint, Jesus,” Phil groans, and it lights up Clint’s mind, the sound of Phil desperate, and Clint does it again, and he does it until he can find a rhythm, and Phil’s fingertips drill into his hipbones, especially the one with the tattoo, but it’s not enough to stop Clint. When he finds his own prostate it’s with genuine shock, he hadn’t even thought to try, and he cries out and Phil cries out, too, and orders, flatly, no other term is right for his words and his tone, “Right there, Clint, ride me just like that, right there, right now,” and Clint’s lust, never gone, never even banked but only momentarily unimportant, rushes back into him, and he does exactly as Phil says, and he is groaning desperately, while Phil says, “Fuck yourself, on my cock, Clint, that’s beautiful, get yourself off, you feel so good, what does it feel like, Clint, tell me how it is for you,” and Clint couldn’t stop himself from answering even if he had wanted to.

“You fill me up, I can’t go any wider and there’s no more room, but it’s enough, Phil, you fill up all the spaces, Phil, I have too many spaces,” and he knows it doesn’t make any sense, and he doesn’t care at all.

“Can you come for me, Clint, can you do it one more time?” Phil asks, and wraps a hand around Clint’s cock, and Clint cries out, he’s hard again but he’s sensitive, but it’s good, too. Phil touching him is good and Phil’s cock dragging at his prostate is good, and he hears himself hitching in teary sounds that he wants to be embarrassed for and can’t, but he works himself back onto Phil’s cock and rocks cautiously into Phil’s hand, and a reedy whine hangs in the back of his throat. “That’s it, come on, Clint, I want to feel you come on my cock again, no one has ever come on my cock like you do, you’re so good, Clint, your ass is so good, you’re such a good boy,” and Clint shouts, and jerks into Phil’s fist and comes again, barely a dribble, but it quakes through his whole body, and Phil jerks his hips up beneath Clint four or five times, the force of it rocking Clint upward, and then groans roughly, his cock jerking in Clint’s ass, and Clint is so wet and stretched and overheated he shouldn’t be able to tell, but he knows, and Phil looks so good, he looks so good, his face tight and hot with pleasure as he comes, and Clint rides him through it until Phil’s hands tighten on his hips and pull him down and still.

They both just breathe, loud and fast, and Clint is so far gone, he knows, has never been this far gone, didn’t know he could be, but he can’t worry about it, he feels too good, his thighs are aching and his ass is raw, the tattoo on his hip is shrilling with pain now that the sex is done, but none of it feels important enough to mention, and Clint might have sat there contentedly for hours if Phil hadn’t eventually said, “Ease up, Clint,” which Clint does immediately and without even thinking about it. 

Clint’s thighs cramp up about halfway up the length of Phil’s cock, and he cries out and almost falls forward, but Phil’s strong, competent hands catch him and lift him the rest of the way, rolling him carefully to one side, and then dig deeply into the muscles of Clint’s right thigh until it has gone loose, and then again for his left thigh.

Clint is a slick mess of sweat and lube and come, and he lies on his back and lets Phil work the spasms out of his thighs and he’s never felt this good, not good, but right, this perfectly _right_ thing, and he wants to keep feeling it. He doesn’t know how to try, so he doesn’t do anything at all. Phil gets up and cleans up in the bathroom and brings out a warm, wet cloth to wipe Clint down, rolling him slightly onto his side to clean Clint’s sore and swollen asshole, and then Phil is next to him, his hands stroking through Clint’s hair and along his arms and chest, long, sweeping motions that leave Clint even more relaxed, somehow.

After a little while, Phil brings him a bottle of water, and Clint guzzles it, shocked at how thirsty he’d been without having realized it. Phil pushes at his chest to make him lay back again when he finishes drinking.

Eventually, Phil says, “How do you feel, Clint?”

Clint isn’t sure how to answer that question. “Good,” he says. “I’m not hurt.”

“I’m glad to hear it, but that wasn’t what I meant,” Phil says seriously. “I mean, in your head. How do you feel in your head.”

Clint turns to look at him. Phil is naked and still a little flushed, and his eyes are very bright and very pleased, and the smile is so naked on his lips that it’s almost stunning. 

“I feel good,” Clint says, Phil’s smile seeming to automatically evoke one from Clint. “Loose. I’m not sure my thighs will ever recover.”

Phil laughs out loud, a bright sound that flutters in Clint’s chest.

“I let you sit there too long,” Phil says. “But you looked like you were pretty content. I’ll know next time.”

Clint feels a sharp little jab of desire at the casual way Phil says ‘next time,’ and then something warmer than that creeps into his belly. He doesn’t need to think of all the ways he’s been thinking that he’s going to end up alone again. He knows them. They always live at the back of his mind. But they all seem far away and unreal now. This doesn’t feel like it belongs to him, not quite, not yet, but he’s beginning to believe it anyway.

He’s beginning to believe that he could be Phil’s, and that it might even be okay if Phil knew it. All of it.

“What about you?” Clint asks. “Was it what you wanted?” He genuinely wants to know.

Phil’s smile goes a little soft and secret. “Clint, it was so much better than I wanted that I can’t even think of how to tell you. You were perfect. You were so good.”

Clint feels his mind rolling out a little more at the praise, and can’t make himself be worried about what he might be revealing. “I think if you fuck me often enough, long enough, I might be able to take you all at once, that way,” he says, not sure why, something about Phil’s reaction he wants to see.

Phil’s eyes gleam. “It’s on my ‘to do’ list,” he says, and Clint relaxes even more because this is the same as it was before, Phil’s smile is freer, more of a real smile than a hint or a curl, but otherwise, he’s the same.

Phil is not Trickshot.

“How much lube did you use?” Clint asks after he’s been lying, still and mellow, long enough that there’s a puddle of lube and come under his ass again.

“Most of it,” Phil says wryly. “I’d have used more if I’d have known you were going to take it so fast.” He strokes a hand just under the bow inked above Clint’s collarbone.

“It was enough,” Clint says. “Can you look at the other tattoo, though. You, uh, you had a pretty good grip on it for awhile there.”

Phil looks startled, and then dismayed, moving immediately to inspect Clint’s hip. “God, Clint, why didn’t you say?” He gets up and gets the bag of tattoo supplies and cleans Clint’s hip, which stings like a bitch, and then sprays liquid bandage over it again. “I don’t think I did any damage to it; Sabine will probably skin me if I did.”

“Honestly, I didn’t care enough to stop,” Clint says, and Phil’s lips curl faintly.

“And I didn’t even think about it, once you were… Jesus, Clint, I would fuck you again right now if it wouldn’t leave you so sore we couldn’t leave our quarters for the rest of the day,” Phil says with heat in his voice.

Clint’s cock tries weakly to respond, but just twitches a little.

Even still, he hears himself saying, “What else do we have to do today?”

Phil gives him a heated look. “Don’t tempt me. I probably really would hurt you after that. And you have to be at the range in a few hours. And I have to get this report to Sitwell. And we should probably make at least an appearance in the war room at some point.” Phil sits up and crosses his legs next to Clint, unselfconsciously naked, his cock still fairly hard resting against his thigh. “Can I ask you something, though, and you can feel free to tell me to go to hell, if this isn’t something you’re ready to talk about?”

Clint considers it a little uneasily, but says, “Okay.”

“The first time you came, Clint, was it because I told you you were a good boy?” Phil asks. His eyes are gentle.

Clint’s cock stirs weakly again, and Clint supposes that’s a pretty good indicator.

“Yeah,” he says, flushing. “I think so.”

“Trickshot didn’t let you come without permission?” Phil asks.

“Trickshot didn’t usually let me come at all,” Clint says quietly. “At first, a little. Then almost never.”

“I don’t play those kind of power games,” Phil says. “I don’t want you to think there is a set of rules I know and you don’t that we’re following. I’ll tell you if I want something from you. And there will be times when I will want you to wait. I know you don’t have much of a yardstick with this, Clint. But it’s not a trick, I promise.”

“I know,” Clint says a little roughly. “I just… I told you, I never found out everything, and what I did find out was mostly bad.”

“It’s okay,” Phil says, voice soft. “I just want to make sure you know that I may ask you to do things that are hard, but I’ll never trick you by not telling you what I want.”

“I know,” Clint says again. “I know you’re not like him.”

Phil looks honestly relieved to hear it.

Clint rolls onto his side and rests his head on Phil’s thigh, because he feels like he can do that now, and Phil shifts a little as though automatically, to make Clint more comfortable. His hand lands on the back of Clint’s neck, and Clint closes his eyes and feels himself go impossibly looser.

He isn’t sure how long he lays like that, his head pillowed on Phil’s thigh. Phil’s hand stays on the back of his neck, and Clint is sure, now, that Phil does know about that, about how it makes Clint feel, and he can’t bring himself to worry about what that means.

“My leg is going to sleep, Clint,” Phil eventually says, sounding amused, and Clint blinks a little, uncertain if he’d fallen asleep or if he’d just been that far gone. He rolls away, struggling a little to get his arms under him, to sit up, but Phil just shifts toward the head of the bed and tugs at Clint until Clint scoots up next to him. “Do you need to sleep?” Phil asks him.

“No,” Clint says; he doesn’t feel tired, just easy, his mind and body humming with something deep and warm, something he’d understood, theoretically, that he needed, that people like him need, but that he has never had.

“Are you hungry?” Phil asks.

Clint doesn’t even have to think about the answer; his stomach answers for him. “Yeah,” he says, sheepish. “I’m fucking starving.” He tries to sit up again, but Phil’s hands press him back down, and Clint lets them.

“I’ll take care of it; you don’t have to do anything,” Phil says, and something about the way he says it makes Clint blush a little, because it’s clear that Phil knows how Clint feels, like it would be okay to just stay where he is forever.

Phil vanishes naked into the kitchen, and Clint kind of imagines Phil getting them something to eat naked, and grins a little at the idea. He comes back in a few minutes with two enormous sandwiches, and this time Phil lets him sit up enough to eat. Still, when he’s done, Clint feels himself easing back. He knows what it is. Subspace. He’s had it before, but only during, not after like this, and he hadn’t known enough to want it like he does. Phil takes their plates away and comes back with his tablet.

“I’m going to work a little,” Phil says. “You’re fine where you are.”

It’s not quite an order; it’s more like permission. Phil props himself up against the headboard, and Clint doesn’t move for a few minutes, and then because he feels like he needs it and he thinks that Phil won’t mind, he eases his way down the bed and rests his face against Phil’s hip.

Phil strokes his fingers idly through Clint’s hair for a minute, and then goes back to what he’s doing, stopping sometimes to touch Clint, like he just wants to touch him.

Maybe Clint does sleep a little, because the next thing he’s really sure of is Phil’s hand curled around his shoulder, not shaking him, but just resting there. Clint looks up at him.

“I need to see Sitwell,” Phil says. “I sent him the report, but I want to talk to him about Maxwell.”

Clint nods, and this time when Clint gets his arms under him to lever himself upright, Phil doesn’t stop him. He does lean in to kiss him, though, and Clint is briefly surprised at the urgency of Phil’s mouth on his, and then is too caught up in it to be surprised, and when they break apart Phil is breathing heavily. “You can stay here if you need to,” Phil tells him.

“No,” Clint says. “I want to…” _be with you,_ he almost says, and only just manages to change it to, “get moving. If I’m going to be at the range at some point, I need to clean up.”

Phil looks a little smug, which makes Clint grin a little. But Phil just asks, “Do you need help?” like it’s perfectly normal that Clint might need help in the shower.

“No, I got it,” Clint says, and Phil nods. 

“You go ahead then,” he says, and Clint rolls out of bed, abruptly aware of the hot, raw ache of his ass and the burn of his thighs, like Phil had said, a workout kind of burn, almost comforting in a bizarre way, that Phil had known and had been right. 

The shower pulls him a little more together, at least once he’s used the rinse kit to get the come and lube out of his ass, and by the time he’s toweling himself dry he feels almost normal. A little more relaxed, maybe, but his head is clear. His ass is a dull throb, and he still feels raw, but there’s something about the way it feels that is good, too. He feels well used. He flushes just thinking about it, but he also feels a little tight and hungry, even though the idea of getting it up again is ludicrous. 

Phil passes him on the way to the bathroom, catching Clint’s wrist to make him pause, leaning in to look at the bow. “You can probably go without,” Phil says thoughtfully. “How rough is the armor inside?”

“Not rough,” Clint says truthfully. “It’s lined with something smooth.”

“It still might rub,” Phil warns. 

“I’ll try it,” Clint says, because honestly the bow hardly hurts at all anymore. “Really, it only itches.”

Phil looks pleased. “Don’t forget to use the liquid bandage,” is all he says though, before disappearing into the bathroom for his own shower.

Clint does a little stretching, naked and unworried about it, just to see how his legs and ass feel, and he’s okay. The tattoo on his hip is still a little sore from Phil’s grip on it, but the bow really does just itch. He knows better than to scratch it, and when he sprays it with liquid bandage, the itch mostly subsides anyway. He wonders about the belt for a few seconds, but then thinks of how sore he is, and decides not to even ask. He gets dressed in the armor, waiting on the vest just long enough to be sure the liquid bandage is dry, recovers his sidearm, even buckles on the extra leg gear, and then finds himself at the sink, washing dishes, with no real idea of what he’d been thinking when he’d decided to do it.


	12. Chapter 12

Phil laughs when he walks into the kitchenette and sees Clint, fully armed and armored, washing the dishes. “Doing dishes in the armor seems like some kind of misappropriation of assets,” he says, only half dressed in a way that makes Clint stare at him as though his open shirt and unbuttoned pants are somehow worth staring at. 

“I’m not sure how it happened,” Clint says, dragging his eyes up from somewhere near his belly button. Phil buttons his shirt and watches Clint watch him do it, something low and possessive stirring in his chest.

“I’m going to press you into manual labor, later,” Phil says, tucking his shirt in and fastening his pants. Clint blinks, as though catching up to the conversation.

“Doing what?” Clint asks.

“I still have things in my old quarters,” Phil says. “Not really that many things, but a few.”

“Okay,” Clint agrees easily. “But what are we doing right now?”

“Sitwell,” Coulson says. “Then it should be about time for you to hit the range.”

“Weren’t we supposed to go to the war room?” Clint asks.

“Fury will call me if he needs us there, though we’ll probably stop there after the range. It’s too soon to have received any intel, but I’m interested in seeing where Hale’s information matches up with our information, as concerns the location of Hydra’s bases. We don’t know the locations of all of them; this might tell us where a few more of them are.”

“Some of them might be AIM,” Clint says, but he doesn’t sound that worried about it one way or the other right now. There’s nothing they can do.

“A few,” Phil says, not worried about it either. If they hit up an AIM base with the kind of manpower they’d normally use for Hydra, it’ll merely be a matter of overkill. “Are you ready?”

Clint’s hand goes up to check the quiver and bow, and then he just nods.

Sitwell’s office is not far from Phil’s, actually. Phil knows he’s there because he keeps office hours -- several of the junior agents report directly to him, as well as some of the junior analysts -- but because of Maxwell, he’d called to make sure anyhow. When Phil knocks, the retina scanner on the wall merely glows green for a few seconds, and Phil opens the door and lets himself in.

Sitwell’s office looks like an exercise in controlled chaos, as per usual; maybe not all that controlled, honestly. Maxwell isn’t present, which Phil isn’t sure is a good sign or a bad sign, though Phil isn’t sure where Maxwell would even have been able to sit amidst the books and papers and stacks of file folders.

“I sent you a report,” Phil says, and Sitwell nods.

“I was right,” Sitwell tells him. “Even some of the recovery teams weren’t entirely forthright about getting single-handedly beat down by your specialist.” Sitwell shakes his head. “Only the assets were up front about it, and they all recommended him as a specialist.”

Phil sighs a little, but isn’t surprised. “Where’s Maxwell?”

“With Hill,” Sitwell says, expression going a little neutral. “In the war room.” He gives Phil a long look. “She wants him, then?”

“You’re not supposed to know that,” Phil says, his tone faintly scolding, but he’s not surprised that Sitwell had read the situation correctly; he’s exceptionally intuitive, and knows Maria almost as well as Phil does.

Sitwell shrugs. “It’s not hard to tell. And he responds well to her, in spite of the way things went at first. I won’t try for a permanent collar.”

“She doesn’t want to push you out, if he’s what you want,” Phil says.

Sitwell shrugs. “I want something, but I don’t know that he’s really it,” he says. He glances at Clint. “It may just be that he was there and needed someone.”

“We’ve got a few specialists that would probably be willing to switch out handlers,” Phil says. This is true, but it would probably cause some trouble for Sitwell, if he takes Phil up on it. It’s trouble Phil is ready to handle, if necessary, and it might be worth it.

“Workplace drama,” Sitwell says dismissively. “There are always going to be more handlers than specialists. It’s not worth pissing anyone off.” He gives Phil a lopsided smile. “Someone will come along. We’ve got specialists in training still, and a few assets that will be ready to take the step up.” He pauses. “I’m not worried about this, Phil,” he finally says. “Maxwell is very sweet, but he’s also very confused right now, and Hill is probably more of what he needs. Stronger and stricter.”

Phil doesn’t disagree. “I’ll let you know if we move any of the assets,” Phil says. “You’re my first choice.”

“I appreciate it,” Sitwell says with a little chuckle. “But we both know it doesn’t work like that, really, and just because you went out and found yourself a specialist without any of the bells and whistles and it’s working out for you doesn’t mean the system isn’t there for a reason. I’d rather wait for someone that suits me.”

Phil nods. “In the meantime, if you don’t want him, do him a favor and let Hill know soonest. He’s been juggled around a lot. He’s probably looking for some solid ground.”

“Isn’t anyone going to talk to him?” Clint asks, and when Phil glances at him, he looks a little surprised, like maybe he hadn’t meant to say anything at all, or at least not out loud.

Sitwell looks at Clint thoughtfully. “They’ll skip the usual tests if Hill wants him, Phil, you know that,” he says.

“Clearly she likes him,” Clint says carefully. “I think he likes her, but I’ve only seen him with her a little, since I told her and Fury off. But he’s got a lot going for him. He’s super smart, combat trained, tactically oriented, submissive, analytically brilliant, already a trained junior agent. I can see why she wants him. But let’s face it, Hill is scary. It’s possible he won’t want all of that to try to live up to. It’s been years since he’s been allowed to be a submissive. And none of us really know for sure that he doesn’t want to stay right where he is, handler-wise and career-wise.” Clint closes his mouth, looking at Phil like he might have more to say, but isn’t sure it would be welcome.

Phil looks back, a little thoughtful and a little approving. Clint must see something like that on his face, because he visibly relaxes.

“You’re right, of course,” Phil says. “Especially with the way he’s been shuttled around these last couple of days. He may not even be ready to make that decision at all.” He gives Sitwell a look. “Hill will take the tests. She wouldn’t have to. You’re right, no one would tell her no. But she’ll take them if I ask her to, in conjunction with him. What about you?”

“Take the tests?” Sitwell asks, looking a little surprised.

“Jasper, you haven’t asked a submissive to take so much as a temporary collar since Marley,” Phil says gently. “Maybe Maxwell isn’t what you need, but I’d like to have your test results ready anyway, because clearly _you’re_ ready.”

A brief flash of grief skates across Sitwell’s face. “I don’t feel like I should be,” he says quietly.

“I don’t know who Marley was,” Clint says, though his gentle tone suggests that Clint has at least extrapolated some of it. “But it’s obvious that he or she meant a lot to you. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to have anyone else, ever.”

Sitwell blinks at Clint, and his expression firms up. “He. And he’d kick my ass if he thought I was sitting it out because of him.” A smile flickers across his face, still a little painful, but real. “I’ll take them. I’m still not sure Maxwell is a good fit for me, or that I’m a good fit for him, but I’ll go ahead.”

Phil smiles, aiming it mostly at Clint, because Sitwell doesn’t need Phil’s approval, even if he has it anyway. “I’ll have them set it up. And I’ll talk to Hill about the tests. Don’t worry about handling her. Clint can handle Maxwell.”

Clint looks startled, but doesn’t object. Phil suspects it has more to do with the fact that Phil had been right about Clint dealing with Maxwell in Psych than it does that Clint thinks he might actually know what to say about the testing.

Phil glances at his watch. “Clint is due on the range. If you need a distraction, you should come watch him make every other agent, asset, and specialist we have look like bumbling amateurs with a rifle.”

Sitwell’s grin is easier this time. “I’m going to take you up on that,” he says, rising.

Clint’s says, “Although I do think Maxwell would do wonders for the state of your office.”

Phil shoots him an exasperated look, but Sitwell laughs out loud. “Can you imagine his face? With all his color coded folders and tabs and maps. It might be worth it just to have him long enough to turn him loose in here.”

Phil snorts. “You’re both terrible people,” he says.

For the first time, Clint walks a little behind Phil, as Sitwell has fallen into easy step with him, and the corridors aren’t really roomy enough for three people to walk side by side without impeding oncoming traffic. Phil is concerned for a few seconds, but he can hear Clint humming _Here Comes the Sun_ softly, and decides that Clint is fine.

Phil sees Clint’s face when they make it to the range, a long moment of wide eyes and then the transition to almost bored that happens when he doesn’t want anyone to know how he really feels about something. Phil understands. Clint has never been in the range during peak times, so he’d never have seen it like this. There have been people in the range before, sometimes a lot of them, but not like this. People are stacked three deep waiting for lanes to open, with the exception of the six lanes closest to the Quartermaster’s cage. 

Which is entirely according to Phil’s plan to make Clint look as good as possible in front of as many people as possible.

“The first ten lanes are always reserved for specialists and assets,” Phil tells Clint. “We get overflow every now and again, but you’ve seen what a specialist range looks like, and the assets have some similar, if not quite as dangerous, set ups, but they need regular range time, too, especially those that aren’t oriented toward firearms.”

“Are there a lot of them?” Clint asks, scanning the crowd, his hand automatically resting on the butt of his gun.

“A fair few,” Coulson says. “We’ve got lots of infiltrators and hand to hand fighters, too, and we try to get everybody at least very good at anything they might run into, but there are always going to be places where some of them are weak. The assets and specialists that aren’t advanced enough to use the hard ranges set up for them, or at least not with a gun, still have to qualify here, just like every other agent.”

“Do you think Capiro would train me with swords?” Clint asks, looking both a little amused and a little embarrassed at the same time.

“You’ve already got steady knife-work,” Phil says. “I think he probably would if you asked.”

Agent Kennet walks out from around the counter and hands Clint a holster, first, and then when Clint, with Phil as an extra set of hands, switches them out, another of the 1911’s. Clint settles them on his hips. They ride a little low, partly the weight of the guns, but partly because Clint wears his sidearm low; Phil had noticed it, and isn’t surprised Kennet had, too. Clint walks up and down the length of the counter a few times, as though trying to get used to the weight. He shifts the right one around a few times, and when he finally has it settled, comes back over to Phil and Kennet.

“What did you do to them?” Clint asks.

“I reworked the loading and firing mechanisms, made them faster, for smoother action, and I altered the grips for a better balance for a fast draw,” Kennet says. “A lot of little tiny detail work, but not any of it really hard. I know handguns aren’t your go-to weapon, though, and I figured if you needed it, you’d want to be able to get it up and balanced as quickly as possible.”

Clint nods his agreement. “If I’m using one, it’s because something has gone wrong,” he says. “Any speed increase is obviously welcome.” He walks around in a circle, both hands gripping the butts of the pistols; Phil has no idea why that’s as attractive as it is. “It’s going to take some getting used to.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you use it right handed,” Kennet says. “Duke said he expected at least a slight decrease in your accuracy, but aside from distance, he didn’t see it.”

“Broke my left arm once,” Clint says. “In Munich, there was a train and some dogs and a guy with a wrench. I was always decent with my right hand.” He shrugs a little. “Trained myself early on, because you never know. But yeah, for a while there, I had nothing but my right hand, and after that, it didn’t make sense not to keep up the skill. It was hell not to be able to use the bow, though.” 

Phil wonders how much work Clint had gone through to get his bow arm back into pulling shape, but doesn’t ask. Instead, not because it needs to be done, but because there is still something very sexy about Clint with both hands on his guns, Phil says, “I’d kind of like to see you shoot with both hands at once.”

Clint turns to look at him, an almost-smirk playing around his lips. “Got some kind of thing for cowboys I should know about?” he asks.

Phil shrugs. It’s more like some kind of thing for competence than cowboys, but he’s not quite willing to stroke Clint’s ego so publicly. He’s a little uncomfortable with his own desire to… to show Clint off the way he wants to. He’s always been a private man. He isn’t sure what to do with the way that he not only wants people to know how incredibly deadly Clint is, but also wants people to know that Clint is his, and that Clint _wants_ to be his. It feels strange and foreign, but maybe more importantly, he thinks Clint would respond to it with the kind of preening pleasure that most submissives would respond with, and _that_ is something he doubts Clint wants to do in front of anyone except Phil, and even only sometimes Phil at this point. “Call it a practical skill evaluation if you want to,” he says. “What’s your absolute maximum range with your right hand?”

“In range conditions?” Clint asks musingling, but doesn’t wait for Phil to answer. “Fifteen hundred yards. Not quite a mile.” Clint looks at Kennet. “All targets aren’t created equally,” he says.

Kennet nods. “Just this once, because I have to grovel to get these every time,” he says, and circles back around the counter and into the back room. He comes out a couple of minutes later with a full body silhouette, the kill areas actually a little smaller than they are on the head to thigh targets that are standard. He strings it onto the reels, and punches in fifteen hundred yards, and the target reels itself away, stopping at the appropriate distance. 

“Material?” Clint asks.

“Industrial grade silicone,” Kennet says. “Chemically treated to show lead passing through it by outlining the puncture in purple.”

Clint looks fairly impressed. “So I’m not going to rip holes in it unless I’m hitting the same spot again and again,” Clint says.

“Exactly,” Kennet says. “Which I won’t rule out, because it’s you.”

“The point is to see if I’m hitting as well right handed as left handed,” Clint says. “I’ll work on spacing.” He considers. “Six bullets from each gun going to do it for you, sir?” he asks Phil. “Any more, and I’m going to end up tearing the target up no matter how hard I try not to.”

Phil merely nods. “From the hip?” he asks, and Clint grins brightly.

“That’s an excellent idea,” he says, and sounds like he means it. “It’ll give me a chance to check the balance of the mods.”

Sitwell says, “Well, this is exciting.”

Clint turns his back to the range for several seconds, then whirls, guns up and out almost faster than Phil can follow, and he’s shooting as soon as they’re up, without seeming to pause at all to aim, shooting as though he was doing it on a battlefield, and pausing meant the potential for death. It doesn’t sound like twelve shots, which Phil is sure is because sometimes Clint had been shooting with both guns at once. Clint steps back, does a cowboy twirl with both hands, throwing Phil a smirk at the same time, and slaps the .45s back into their holsters.

“Do you always walk around with the safeties off?” Sitwell asks.

Clint doesn’t even look at him. “Disengaging a safety and then positioning your hand to fire takes over three seconds in real time. Theoretically it can be done in less than one, but that’s a bullshit theory. If I need a handgun, I don’t have that kind of time to waste.” Clint slaps the button that reels the target in.

For a few seconds, they all just look at it in silence. All twelve of Clint’s shots had made it into kill zones, but that isn’t really the surprise. The surprise is how evenly spaced apart that they are, obviously deliberately, so that they can see the lavender ring from each bullet. Like with the Cheytac that first night, they’re almost perfect circles, head and heart.

Kennet wordlessly takes the target down and disappears with it. Clint looks at Phil. “That what you wanted to see, sir?” he asks, sounding a little amused.

Phil is stupidly turned on by the demonstration, but says, “Precisely that, specialist,” going for bland, but pretty sure he’s not keeping all of the amusement mingled with heat out of his tone. Clint rolls his eyes.

Kennet reappears a few seconds later, holding a dozen bullets, which he hands to Clint. “You’ll want the Sako?” Kennet asks, and Clint nods. “What magazine?”

“Assume the biggest magazine,” Clint says, grinning. “You can pretend I’m compensating if it makes you happy.”

Kennet laughs and Phil snorts. Sitwell’s brows arch slightly, but he’s otherwise silent. Clint pops the clip on each gun and reloads them before snapping them back into his holsters.

Kennet disappears into the cage with Clint’s old holster and comes out with the Sako TRG-42, juggling half a dozen ten round magazines at the same time. He hands the gun directly to Clint, who breaks it down quickly, presumably just to make sure everything looks like it should. Phil doesn’t recognize the gun itself, but he sees that Kennet has outfitted it with the Nightforce scope, which is good in a variety of situations, and Clint doesn’t say anything about it, so Phil assumes that works for him.

“It’s a lightweight gun for its range, which is one of the things I like about it. If I had to pick a favorite rifle, the Cheyenne Tactical will probably always be at the top of the list, but it’s a longer gun, and sometimes I won’t have that much space to work with,” Clint says. 

He adjusts the scope by hand, sighting with it down the lane absently as he does, and when the crowd draws in -- or thickens, really, they’d been drawn by Clint’s wild west shooting gallery display already -- which Phil had known they would, considering the film of Clint with the Cheytac and the ten two mile kill shots, Clint cocks his head a little, obviously aware of the attention, but not seeming concerned.

Phil nudges him with a pair of ear guards and shooting glasses, and Clint sighs -- Phil gets it, shooting glasses at the ranges he’s going to be firing at are kind of pointless, and they haven’t bothered with them before but they haven’t had quite so many witnesses to range rule violations before -- but puts them on. “Range rules,” Phil says, aware of Clint’s irritation.

“It’s not that,” Clint says. “I see better without them.” He turns to look at Phil. “I use them outside sometimes, when the sun is at a bad angle or there is glare, but they actually really do impair my vision.”

Phil considers that for a moment, thinks it’s probably one hundred percent true, and then holds out his hand. Clint grins, and takes them off, handing them to Phil. “Thanks,” he says.

“Specialists have special requirements,” is all Phil says.

Clint snaps off a cartridge at fifteen hundred feet, the rifles normal maximum range, which blows a hole in the chest big enough to throw a basketball through and obliterates the head entirely. “Optimal conditions,” Clint says, and shakes his head a little, but just moves the target out to an even two thousand. The results aren’t quite as dramatic -- the outline of the head is at least visible -- but Clint is grinning, stroking his fingertips lightly over the entire length of the gun.

“Have you fired one before?” Phil asks.

“Nope,” Clint says. “Had one fired _at_ me. I’ve just heard good things. Most of them seem to be right.” Clint finishes out the magazines that Kennet had loaded, not because Phil thinks Clint really needs to -- he’s beginning to think that Clint borders on savant-like in his ability with guns, and the way he’s using this one speaks of complete familiarity and comfort -- but probably because Kennet had bothered to load them for him. When he’s done, he hands over the gun and the ear guards to Kennet.

“Exactly what I was looking for,” he says. 

Kennet says, “You could do better,” like he doesn’t have a doubt.

Clint throws a sideways glance at the crowd, who are already murmuring about Clint’s range, and shrugs a little. “I could, maybe, but I don’t need to. If I need to do better, I’ll take the Cheytac.” Kennet looks slightly disappointed. Clint, looking amused, says, “Does it really matter? I mean, aside from proving that I’m better than all of them just by pushing it out five hundred yards, is it really necessary? I know what I can do. I could probably coax another five out of it, definitely another three, but like I said, if I need that, I’ll take the Cheytac.”

“No, I don’t guess it matters,” Kennet says. “Just spoiled from seeing you when you’re really working for it.”

“Better if I don’t have to be in that situation,” Clint says. “If I’m really having to work at it, things are probably going badly. Besides,” he says, softly, “I’ll want to work all three rifles a little more before I’m really done with this kit, but there’s no reason to do it now. I’ll come back when it’s not so busy and let you call impossible shots for me. And when I get the chance to take the Cheytac to an outdoor range, I’ll make sure you get an invite. Fair?”

Kennet looks tickled. “More than fair.”

“You might want to stock up on the Sakos though,” Clint adds. “It’s a good gun, and I get the feeling people are going to be asking for it, since--” he waves his hand a little toward his lane.

“Already have,” Kennet says wryly. “There will definitely be some demand for it, after that. And it is a good gun.”

Sitwell asks, “Do you ever miss?”

He’s been so quiet, Phil had almost forgotten he was there. Clint seems a little surprised as well, and turns toward him. “Miss entirely?” Clint asks, like he genuinely doesn’t understand what Sitwell is asking.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Sitwell says, chuckling a little. “What about just not hitting exactly where you’re aiming?”

Clint just looks at him for a moment. “If I couldn’t hit exactly where I was aiming, what would be the point of having me as a sniper?” he asks.

Phil says, “He doesn’t miss. He can pick up a gun and shoot exactly where he’s aiming every time.”

“Any gun?” Sitwell asks, and Clint just nods. Sitwell unholsters his weapon and hands it to Clint.

“What range?” Clint asks him.

“I tend to shoot right around six hundred yards at ninety-five percent,” Sitwell says. “Double that, and shoot two inches left of the heart.”

Clint retrieves his ear guards, queues up a target, doesn’t seem to pause to aim at all, and takes the shot. At this distance there is no real reason to reel the target in to see the results. 

“Pretend it has a left ear,” Sitwell says, and Clint grins a little, and takes the shot. “Right eye,” Sitwell says, and Clint takes the shot. “This is really more fun than it should be,” Sitwell says. “Try another gun.”

Clint hands Sitwell’s gun back to him, and Phil hands Clint his gun. They all turn back to the lane, and Sitwell says, “Left nut,” and Phil snorts, but Clint takes the shot, or at least does the best anyone could do, since the targets are really only thigh to head, with the thighs being all one shadowy piece. “We should see what we can do to get Agent Kennet some more funding for his other targets,” Sitwell says thoughtfully. Silently, Phil thinks they’d be wasted on most of the people here. Clint hands Phil back his gun. “Someone give me a gun,” Sitwell says, and one of the agents in the crowd hands his gun forward. Clint takes the gun, tilts it in his hand for a second, then looks at Sitwell. “Give him nipples,” Sitwell suggests.

Clint smirks, but obediently gives the target nipples.

“So it really is any gun,” Sitwell says. “You don’t need a few shots to get used to the balance or the aim?”

“Any gun I was going to use to snipe with, I would take the time to be sure I could handle it if I had to shoot upside down standing on one hand,” Clint says, handing the agent his gun back and taking off his ear guards again. “But, yeah. That agent’s gun has been with him a long time. It’s got some wear on the hammer, and the sight isn’t straight, and he’s probably so used to it he compensates automatically. I just look for things, I feel the way the gun feels in my hand, and I can tell. It’s not like the bow,” Clint says, reaching back to touch it automatically. “I was good at it as soon as I picked it up, but I worked my ass off with the bow. The guns are just something I can do. I trained, yeah, but, it didn’t take much.”

Sitwell looks thoughtful.

“We should get to the war room if we’re going to go before dinner,” Phil says.

Kennet takes the ear guards out of Clint’s hands, and kind of waves away the crowd of agents behind Clint.

“I’ll sit this one out,” Sitwell says. “I’ve got some write ups to get done, and assuming he’s still with me, I’ll need to collect Maxwell in an hour or so anyway.”

They leave the range going in opposite directions, and for a minute or so, walk in silence. “You don’t think Hill is a good match for Maxwell?” Phil asks finally.

Clint considers his answer for several long moments. “I think she’s a little taken with him. Sitwell, too. I don’t blame them. He’s definitely worth their time. But neither of them really know him, what he wants or needs. He may not even know that himself. It would be easy to let Hill claim him and… mold him into whatever she wants him to be right now, because he’s been so many different things that he could be almost anything she wants. He’s suggestible. But that doesn’t mean that’s what’s best for him.” Clint pauses for a long moment. “You and me aside, Phil, I know I was pretty dubious about the testing thing. But those decisions have to get made in some way that’s likely to work out for both parties, and I don’t know a better way, so I have to guess that the testing usually works.”

“About eighty percent of the time,” Phil says. “It’s by no means foolproof. But the alternative is just to throw an asset or specialist at a handler and see if they stick. And yes, you and I aside, that doesn’t work often. And when the testing doesn’t work, we test again, try again. Eventually it does work.”

“I just think he should be consulted before you guys decide what to do with him. You said yourself that he didn’t have to be an asset or a specialist. That he could keep being a junior agent,” Clint says.

“He’s spent two days in a collar, Clint,” Phil says gently. “He could go back to being a junior agent, but the people he works with know what he is, now. If it had only been a matter of protecting that secret because of what he wanted, career-wise, it could have been done. But with the intel he had, and the situation being what it was, he had to have a collar to function. We can’t keep that secret for him now. If he decides to go back to what he was before, he may have to fight for it, and keep fighting for it, at least until he makes senior agent, at which point no one would dare touch him.”

“There’s something wrong with the way things are here, that you guys just expect people to try to poach your submissives, and then basically make it so that the submissives are responsible for not getting mistreated.” Clint says quietly, not angry, but with a definite value judgment that doesn’t come down on SHIELD’s favor in his tone. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the belt. But I shouldn’t have to wear it to be safe.”

Phil actually stops in the hall to turn to look at Clint. “Is that what you think?” he asks, honestly surprised, and then a moment later, not surprised at all. He hasn’t had Clint on any of the briefing materials, they’ve never talked about how it works aside from what Clint can do to protect himself and what Phil insists on doing to extend that protection. Of course that’s what Clint thinks, and Phil has no one to blame but himself for that.

Clint looks confused. “Isn’t that what you said? Isn’t that what the belt is for?”

Phil takes a look around, and takes and holds Clint’s elbow, tugging him toward the doorway of a conference room that’s dark inside. He goes in and the lights come up; it’s one of the small conference rooms, just a square room with a round table and eight chairs.

Phil sits, and gestures Clint to sit. He’s silent for at least a minute trying to think how to explain something any first year junior agent would have learned in his first two weeks, and which Phil had completely dropped the ball on. He rubs at his face for a moment, and then sighs faintly and leans forward to brace his elbows on his knees, cocking his head to look at Clint.

“SHIELD’s protocols and policies for protecting submissives are very strict, and deeply ingrained into every agent, asset, specialist, janitor, cook, secretary… well, you get my point. Most submissives that come to us -- not assets or specialists, you understand, those usually already have skills SHIELD wants to cultivate -- but the rest are looking for jobs in mostly ancillary departments. They’re trained, Clint; everyone you see here is trained at the very least in combat and defense, no matter what job they eventually decide to settle into. SHIELD couldn’t function with a staff that couldn’t protect and defend at a moment’s notice. There is some transferring around that happens, when people get bored, but mostly the ancillary staff stay in ancillary positions, not because they have to, but because they aren’t interested in other kinds of work. The submissives that work in those areas, collared or uncollared, are fiercely guarded by the dominants in those departments, but those dominants aren’t the same kind of dominants that make up most of the working agents, field agents, and junior agents training as field agents. The latter are more aggressive by nature, which they have to be in a lot of cases, to be good at their jobs. And some of them are more aggressive than others, just like in any other mix of dominants.” He pauses, half-hoping Clint will interrupt him with questions, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to, which leaves Phil with little choice but to deliver it in quasi-lecture form.

“I told you before that you were going to get advances,” Coulson says, “and I was not lying to you. Some handlers aren’t strict about whom their specialists interact with outside of the job. Some of them do have something like the business arrangement you mentioned before.”

Clint does interrupt, then. “You said that kind of fraternization did more harm than good; that if I wanted to have sex, it was going to be with you.” His voice is so neutral it worries Phil.

“Which, under protocol, I have that right,” Phil says. “And about seventy percent of handlers with specialists do it that way. It’s a matter of keeping your focus sharp and your loyalties undivided. That said, it’s not breaking protocol if a handler chooses to allow his or her specialist to seek entertainment elsewhere, especially if they aren’t as sexually compatible as they are intellectually compatible, or if they work well as a platonic team better than they do with a sexual component added.” Phil waits for Clint to ask something else, but he just looks at Phil, and Phil feels compelled to go on.

“It’s even more unclear with assets. Almost without exception, assets are actual submissives, and they don’t have a set handler. They rotate around, and that’s enough for some of them, but not all or even most of them, and that’s understood and accounted for in protocol. They have the right to pick their partners; it’s one of the reasons why some assets never take the step up to specialist, even when they could, skill-wise, because specialists are more stringently trained, and to an extent, are handled in a way that focuses those abilities without distractions.

“The point I’m making here is that a collar around your throat does not necessarily make you obviously off-limits within SHIELD. I know that it almost always does outside the organization, but you already know that things are different here.”

“Expecting to be hit on and expecting unwanted physical advances are two separate things, Phil,” Clint says slowly. “You barely mentioned the first and were pretty fierce about my options regarding the other.”

“I know, and that’s my fault. I _am_ possessive about my specialists; I always have been. I don’t share. Even the specialists I’ve handled whom I haven’t been… attached to.” He pauses to glance at Clint’s face, but Clint is working on keeping it neutral, which makes Phil scrutinize him more sharply, but he doesn’t press. “When you got here, even though word would have spread pretty quickly that I’d be handling you, no one knew your face. What they would see was a beautiful man with a collar around his throat, which does not automatically translate to them as unavailable to them. Submissives are often sensual creatures, even overtly sexual, and they’re a lot like anyone else. They like to flirt, to play, and sometimes those kinds of things lead to more, and sometimes they get out of hand. Assets and specialists rarely need assistance handling those types of situations, but if they do, if they’re persistent or recurring, the protocols are in place to protect them. They are allowed to do whatever they need to do to discourage pursuit, but…” Clint looks a little pained, and Phil wants to go back to that first day, while they were discussing Clint’s contract, and force himself to detail everything about how it works and why. Instead, he says, “They’re classified as submissives for a reason, Clint, and that’s because they _like_ to be dominated. Most of the agents are dominants, and they know that, and they pursue if they think that such pursuit might work.

“So when nobody knew your face and I knew you’d be alone with them at times, I did what I had to do to feel sure of your safety to the best of my ability. I warned you, I used the belt, and I will keep doing that until they know your face and know that you’re mine, at which point all but a few of the really persistent wouldn’t be likely to even approach you. But even with that done, HQ sees a lot of personnel influx, people that don’t know me or you, sometimes transferred in, sometimes just passing through, and until someone warns them off you’re still an almost irresistible target. With as many tags as you have on your collar, even more so, because strong submissives are a challenge, getting the chance to have one is its own reward.” He pauses again, and rubs at his temples.

Clint is leaning forward now, too, elbows on his knees, watching Phil’s face, maybe looking for a lie there. He hates the fact that Clint might think Phil would lie to him, and Phil wouldn’t, deliberately, but he had definitely provided only limited information. A lot of it was just lack of thought on Phil’s part, but that doesn’t excuse it.

There isn’t much he can do about it except keep talking and hope Clint is listening.

“Even more likely to happen, though, are situations in the field. You’ll be sharing close quarters with agents who may have never heard of either of us, including things like shower facilities and sleeping arrangements. You won’t be wearing your collar, but assuming you’re out for any length of time and that you’ve got a semi-secure base to work from, they’re going to see your tattoos, either in the shower, or just when you’re changing clothes. They’ll already know that you’re a specialist, and thus presumably a submissive, but those things can be set aside as facts. Seeing the marks on your body, especially when it’s such a fantastic body, is not as easy to ignore.

“You’ll be propositioned, you’ll be touched, you may even be wooed a little, but even still, most agents are aware that you could kill them almost without effort. It won’t stop them from wanting, won’t necessarily even stop them from trying to convince you in a physical manner. I’m not talking about assault, per se. I’m talking about the kinds of touches that mean they want you, would be willing to do more. And even that is likely to be a problem you can deal with on your own, though if it happens, I still want it reported to me to deal with.

“But sometimes you’re going to be in the mud and the blood and the gore with a group of agents, and assuming you all survive, that kind of thing takes a dominant into an entirely different headspace. What you are perceived to be will put you in a position of such extreme desirability that some of them will do things that they would not do under normal circumstances. Not all the time, Clint, or even most of the time, though after an experience like that, dominants that might have merely indicated interest might become more aggressive. But sometimes it’s enough to make a dominant pursue aggressively beyond the limits of what you should be expected to put up with, and _those_ are the situations we try to prepare you for with the protocols in place. That you can and should defend yourself in any way you feel necessary.” He’s still looking at Clint. “It’s not likely to happen here, or often, but it has happened in the past, and it has sometimes been very bad. Occasionally, an asset or a specialist will find himself or herself in a situation where that aggression spreads like a disease among the other agents involved. _Not_ often, but often enough that we make sure you all know you’re allowed to do whatever it takes, including kill, to maintain your own safety.”

Clint takes a few minutes to think about it, which Phil is fine with allowing. It’s all true, and some are things Phil would have given Clint specific warnings about the first time he went into that kind of combat mission with dominant agents involved. It doesn’t change that Clint should have already known at least the outline of everything Phil has just told him from the time he had signed the SHIELD contract. Phil should have _made_ the time.

“It was unfair of you to let me think I was more of a target of a real threat than I really was.”

“It was, and I’m sorry,” Phil says. “I didn’t mean it to come across that way, and you have every right to be angry. I should have found the time to explain it to you so that you weren’t walking around here waiting for someone to jump you.”

Clint nods. “That said, I _was_ a target, not for any of the reasons you said, but that almost doesn’t matter. I was prepared because… while I never felt particularly worried, Phil, it was clear that _you_ were. I can see it being more of a matter of… staking your claim, than concern that I might actually get hurt, and we both know I don’t have a problem with you staking your claim. But I was more prepared than I might have been if I’d known more of the details.”

“That may be true, but doesn’t really excuse it,” Phil says. “I’d like to think I would have gotten to it -- I know at some point I would have insisted that you actually read the training materials -- but, Clint, part of that is still on me. Do I think you’re probably safe walking the base without my belt? I do. With the rational part of my brain, I’m almost sure you are. But as a dominant, I _feel_ like you’re a target for that kind of attention any time I’m not with you, and that makes me… not entirely rational. I know it, but I can’t help it.” He gives Clint a look that he knows is frustrated and a little helpless. “I don’t know if it’s instinct, if it’s hard-wired; I know that not all dominants feel like this. But for _me_ , the idea of you wandering the base without all the protection I can give you is enough to make me want to restrict your movements and your access. I won’t actually do that, Clint, but it makes me want to.”

Clint says nothing for a long moment. Then, it’s something Phil isn’t sure what to make of. “It’s not that different than seeing you fight, that first time, when whatever-his-name-was-the-asset came at you. I wasn’t thinking at all. It was entirely reflex. He came at you, and you… you’re mine to protect.” Clint is looking slightly away, but his voice is a little fierce. “If I thought you walking around base was in some way dangerous to you, I would do whatever it took to make sure you were safe. So I get it, kinda. I’ve got different instincts, but I get it. I can deal with this. I don’t have a problem with the belt. I will always report anything I can’t handle to you, and I won’t interfere in how you choose to handle it. But there is something we both have to know, and better to find out now than later. I’m going to be in the field, Phil, sometimes alone, sometimes with other agents. I’m going to have to fight off that kind of attention if you’re right, and I believe you most likely are. Are you going to be able to deal with that?”

Phil feels relieved and a little deflated at the same time. “Yes,” he says immediately. “If I couldn’t, I never could have handled anyone at all. I understand the conditions you’ll be working under, and I trust your ability to deal with whatever situations come up, although again, I want that kind of behavior reported to me to deal with. I will never be able to take your safety as certain unless I’m standing right next to you, and that’s just as true of your physical safety, the mission-related risks to your safety that I know you’re going to have to take. But I have been trained to deal with that, and I have experience with it. I won’t ever try to keep you safely hemmed in, Clint. I know what you are, I understand your needs as a specialist, and I will never let my fear for you stop me from sending you into the field in any situation that your abilities are suited to deal with.”

Clint looks almost as relieved to hear it as Phil is to be able to honestly say it. It will be different with Clint. He knows that, because he feels things for Clint he wouldn’t have guessed possible, judging by his experience at handling specialists in the past. He’ll worry more, but he won’t let that stop him from utilizing Clint in every way that his skills allow him to be effectively utilized. If Clint ever felt Phil was holding him back, there would be no reasoning with him, and Phil wouldn’t hold Clint back anyway. It’s about trust, but it’s also about who and what he is, and Phil had known that going in. Clint is a spy, a black ops agent, a sniper, a killer. He works mostly on the side of right as he perceives it -- Phil knows, he’s practically got Clint’s file memorized by now -- but he’s still essentially a lethal force looking for an outlet. All Phil can do is give him that outlet.

“Then that brings me back to the original question,” Clint says. “About what Maxwell will do if he wants to continue to be a junior agent.”

“Shit,” Phil says, a little wry. “I’d almost forgotten we were talking about Maxwell.” Phil takes a deep breath. “He can go back. His team is a question mark. Will they close ranks around him and make sure he isn’t swarmed with advances? I’d like to think so. Will they feel betrayed that he lied to them? It’s possible. Either way, he’s an uncollared submissive in a population that consists largely of dominants. He’s going to be pursued, probably aggressively, and living in that kind of bubble of attention is a hard thing to do. Even if no one ever touches him, almost every one of them will let him know that they want to. He’ll have to fight for that, if that’s what he wants. He’ll have to fend off those kind of advances every day, and that is exhausting. He’ll probably have to physically demonstrate his unwillingness to be touched at least a few times, though I honestly don’t know how far that would go. Do I think he’ll be sexually abused? Probably not, but it could happen. But even if it doesn’t, working within a group of people that feel like you’re desirable and potentially available is going to wear on him. We _have_ submissive agents. They generally are already collared when they join, or they’re paired and exclusively collared by a dominant partner, and that partner doesn’t leave his collared submissive alone at any time. It’s almost _more_ controlled than a handler-slash-specialist relationship. In the field, a submissive agent is expected to perform just as well as a dominant, and they often do, sometimes even better. But the dominant agent doesn’t turn him or her loose among other dominants alone. Even if they aren’t sleeping together, they’re inseparable. If he wants that, we can make it happen, but there’s no way it’s going to be anything but a fight for him.”

“More to the point,” Clint says, sounding subdued, “is that if he finds himself in the blood and the mud and the gore with a group of agents, he’s not actually lethal the way that most of us are. His ability to defend himself is severely limited, especially in a situation with more than one dominant involved.”

Phil nods. “Everything else can be worked around if he’s willing to deal with the level of attention he’ll be receiving. But if he goes any further into field work without a dominant partner, that is a real danger. Again, it’s not a danger he’ll face that often, because SHIELD agents are trained on how to control some of that splash over, but it would only have to happen once to potentially damage him, either physically or psychologically, in a way that he might not be able to come back from. If I were going to put in a recommendation, it would be that Maxwell not be assigned to that kind of field work. There is other field work he can do, but I wouldn’t want him in close proximity to dominants in combat scenarios.”

Clint frowns a little. “The thing is, I think he could be really good in a crisis, with a dominant there to ground him. Shooting people is hard.” Clint hesitates a little. “Or it is, at first, for most people. The two hitters at the bus stop were Maxwell’s first kills, and I gave him the push, but the actual act… he didn’t have a problem with. We talked about it some, while…” Clint waves his hand to indicate Psych. “I know he doesn’t have the training, or necessarily the skill at this point, but he could be a hitter, if that was one of the things you needed him for.”

“I’ll pass the information on,” Phil says. “Right now, it’s a little too early to tell. You were right, before. He probably doesn’t know what he wants himself. Some of the testing will help resolve that, too.”

Clint nods. “I’m still not really happy with you,” he says.

The corner of Phil’s lip curls up the tiniest bit; he’s pretty sure that’s an understatement. “I know. Let me know if there’s something I can do to alleviate that.”

Clint smiles, looking a little like he’s doing it unwillingly. “I’ll think about it. War room?”

Phil stands. “It may be mostly empty at this time of day. Or Fury might have had a meal catered in, and it might be packed. Or more likely Hill. Fury forgets the rest of can’t usually function on sheer rage,” he says ruefully.

Clint snorts.

The war room is actually in a mild state of steady sort of business. Fury glances up when they come in, almost smiles, then remembers himself and looks fierce instead. “There was nothing in your file about you being a two handed shooter. Is the other one just for balance?”

Clint laughs out loud, and most of the room stops what they’re doing to look at him. Probably not a lot of laughing going on in here in the last couple of days, Phil is sure. Still, Clint answers Fury’s question. “My range is more limited with my right hand, but as long as I’m not trying to outstrip my limits, my accuracy is still perfect. And Coulson was pretty insistent that I have at least two guns, in case I don’t have other options.”

“I agree with Coulson,” Fury says. “You might have gone with an ankle holster, though.”

“Honestly, I tend toward too many acrobatics; an ankle holster is likely to get in my way.” Clint shrugs. “Especially since I’ve never used one, and there’s got to be some kind of adjustment period.”

Fury looks thoughtful. “I’m inclined to trust whatever you and Coulson think suits you best. Now are you here for a reason, or just stopping by to say ‘hi’?”

“A progress report would be nice,” Phil says, resting a hand at the small of Clint’s back, but he isn’t looking at Fury at all, and then notes that Fury is looking in the same direction Phil is.

Hill is stationed behind a laptop, her brow a little furrowed with concentration while she works. Maxwell is sitting cross-legged at her feet, laptop balanced between his knees. As Phil watches, Hill reaches down and rakes her nails through Maxwell’s hair, and Maxwell arches up into it without taking his eyes off his screen.

“On the op,” Fury asks quietly. “Or on that?”

“He needs to be tested,” Phil says quietly, and he expects to have to explain himself, but Fury is nodding already.

“Hill, too, if she wants him. His headspace is too muddled to just let them fall together,” Fury says. “I hope it works out. She obviously likes him, and his talent spread could actually be of real use to her in her position. But I’ve already had it pointed out to me that I haven’t been on my game with this submissive.” He looks pointedly at Clint. “I don’t usually need to be told twice.”

“I think I did actually tell you twice,” Clint says, and Fury turns to glare at him at the same time the Phil pinches him hard on the upper back of his thigh. “Ow, sir!” Clint says. “Sorry, Director,” he adds unwillingly.

Fury’s sigh is long-suffering.

“Will Hill agree?” Phil asks.

“I don’t think I’ll have to make it an order,” Fury says. “The ones she really likes, she’s mostly willing to work hard for.”

“Um,” Clint says. “You told Sitwell that I’d handle talking to Maxwell about the testing, which I meant to mention earlier, because I have no idea what to tell him about it. Or why I have to tell him about it. Can’t you just mention it to both of them?” 

Phil and Fury are both giving Clint steady looks, and Clint looks back and forth between them for a few seconds before he turns his attention toward Phil, which is exactly what he should be doing.

“Maxwell trusts you,” Phil says. “If you tell him one of the things he needs to decide how to proceed is testing, he’ll do the testing.”

Clint looks a little dubious. 

Fury says, “Aside from Psych, you’ve come to his defense at least twice to his knowledge. He went to his knees for you, Barton, in a room full of dominants, when he knows that you work in a submissive capacity. Submissives don’t do that unless there is an enormous degree of trust involved. I’d take is as a favor if you’d broach the subject.”

Clint’s eyebrows are climbing toward his hairline, but Phil’s trying to imagine Clint _ever_ going to his knees for a submissive, in any capacity, and can’t do it (can’t in some cases, imagine him doing so for many dominants), so he’s not surprised when Clint merely says, “Yes, sir.”

“I’ll handle Hill,” Phil says. “No offense, sir, but I think it might be better coming from me.”

“I agree,” Fury says. “I was hoping you would. Now all we have to do is separate them.” He sounds a little grimly amused.

“I’ll get her to fill me in,” Phil says, and makes his way over to her. “You got a minute to run me through this fast forward?” Phil asks, and she bends down to touch Maxwell’s neck, and then gets up and they move over to the big map, where there are a lot more little black flags that indicate subs and several more yellow flags that indicate potential Hydra bases, probably predicated on the location of the subs.

Phil listens, because he really does want this information, but he’s looking for an opening, as well; he knows Maria well enough to be sure that she’ll take the tests if she genuinely thinks it’s better for Maxwell if they both do that. But she’s always been the same kind of handler as Phil has been: Possessive. If she already sees Maxwell as hers, Phil will have to walk a tight line to manage her. He begins to marshal arguments in his head, and throws his gaze over his shoulder just once, surprised to find Clint and Fury deep in what looks like a serious conversation. Phil would dearly love to know what they’re talking about, but he puts his curiosity away. He’ll ask Clint later.


	13. Chapter 13

“Your friend Hale managed to put his hands on a lot of information that we desperately needed,” Fury says, and Clint turns back to look at him, waiting, because Fury’s voice seems to indicate that he isn’t done talking. “I don’t know any of the details of his organization aside from it being at least partly pirate-related, and I don’t expect you to fill in any of the blanks.”

“I mostly couldn’t,” Clint says truthfully. “I spent a lot of time with Lyndon while I was with them, but I was never one of them.”

Fury considers that, but just shakes his head like it isn’t important. “The point is that we could not have managed to get this information without you. Coulson wants you as a kind of poster boy, a ‘be all that you can be’ example for SHIELD, and I understand why. Except for your mouth, you’ve managed to do a lot of things a lot of our people couldn’t have done in a very short amount of time. The question is, do you want that?”

“Phil wants that,” Clint says, not sure where this is going.

“I didn’t ask that,” Fury says. “Do _you_ want that? Do you have a clear idea of what Coulson wants would entail?”

“Some of it's just me mingling with people other than the specialists, though I think he wants the rest of the specialists to do some mingling, too. Some of it is taking over some jobs for missions that don’t include my special skills. Just to prove I can, and therefore that other agents could, at least theoretically. He says he doesn’t want to take me out of the field, which is what I mostly care about, but I don’t mind sometimes handling different positions on missions that don’t need me as a sniper.” Clint thinks about it for a few seconds. “He wants more of SHIELD to be able to do crossover work, but that’s mostly on you. I can prove it can be done, but you have to deal with getting your people trained to do it.”

“Part of that _would_ be on you, though,” Fury says, serious, but it doesn’t feel like he’s pushing any specific agenda. “We would want you to handle at least a little bit of training. It doesn’t have to be in large groups, but what I’m not sure Phil understands is that the _way_ you think isn’t something that can be taught just by cross-training people to be able to handle other jobs. In no way would I allow this to interfere with your field time, Barton, but it’s more than just being here and being yourself. It’s taking the time to explain to other people how it works to be able to manage multiple aspects of a single mission, why it’s important to be able to do it. Do you know what kills more SHIELD agents than anything other than direct combat situations?”

Clint blinks a little at the question, but answers, “No, sir.”

“Not knowing what to do next,” Fury says gravely.

Clint isn’t sure if that’s a statistic or if it’s meant to be illustrative.

Apparently, it’s a statistic, because Fury elaborates, “If it’s a matter of being able to pick up a fallen agent’s gun and use it, SHIELD agents do fine, but if the tactical leader of a team is a casualty, in spite of the fact that backup plans are always in place, a disturbingly large percentage of the time, those teams can’t complete their missions. The first team that came after you in Norway, you gave the tactical leader a concussion right out of the gate and he was out for the rest of the mission. There were alternative plans in place, but without that leadership, they were ineffective. It’s not a fair comparison, because they probably couldn’t have caught you if their plans had been flawless, but it’s indicative of the problem. We have backups whenever we can, we double up on essential personnel, but if we lose leadership, the team loses the ability to function cohesively. We’ve known this, it isn’t news. And it doesn’t happen eighty or eighty-five percent of the time. But in our line of work, a fifteen to twenty percent failure rate is unacceptable.”

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me to do with this information, sir,” Clint says truthfully.

“Hypothetically, what would you do to fix it?” Fury asks.

Clint thinks about it for almost a minute, thinks about what he knows and suspects about SHIELD training in general, and finally says, “My understanding is that all junior agents are tactically trained. That they later get slotted into the jobs that they’re best at, but they all have the basics?”

“Yes,” Fury says, and Clint can see on Fury’s face that he already has at least some idea of what Clint is going to suggest, but he says it anyway.

“Then I would alternate tactical coordination of missions between everybody on the team until they can all function at it if they have to. They don’t all need to be perfect at it, but they all have to be able to take over if there’s no choice. It will be rocky, going into it. Your success rate may plummet another ten percent while your people really figure out the changes in their jobs. But it will eventually make it so anyone can pick up the headset and get the mission back on track. And you should do it for other essential positions on any team. And while I do get that what makes a team cohesive is at least partly each member knowing the way everyone else on the team is going to think and react, you should also consider mixing your teams up, so that each member of every team is forced to assume that the people they’re working with might not know everything they know. Not all the time, because you don’t want to lose the bonds those teams already have, but often enough so it forces communication that your teams don’t have right now because they’re comfortable. They’re all comfortable that they only have to do their jobs and that everyone else will be able to do their own, which just leads to lazy thinking, lazy planning, and lazy leadership. Your people are some of the best trained people in the world, but they have been trained not to be big picture thinkers. They deal with narrow aspects of each op, and an operation should be viewed as a whole by everyone involved if you want it to have the best chance to succeed.”

“Part of the reason it’s done that way is to protect sensitive intel,” Fury says, though not as though he’s arguing.

“Then SHIELD needs to decide if their failure rate justifies what we’re doing to protect that intel. If it doesn’t, then SHIELD needs to go to whatever lengths are necessary to make sure that at least most of that intel doesn’t need to be protected from our own people.” Clint shakes his head. “In spite of what all you guys can do, you’re a lot like the circus. The sword swallower can’t throw knives and the clowns can’t walk a tightrope. You want that to change, you need to give your people the training to change it and the experience to really _learn_ it, because there’s a difference in knowing how off paper. That’s how you can up your success rate. As for your secrets, it shouldn’t be that hard. You give easy missions with no secrets to teams just starting out, and you let those teams learn and grow until they’ve been doing it for so long that there’s no question about their ability to protect sensitive intel. You’re never going to tell everybody everything, except Hill, maybe, and even then. But you’ve got people who can keep secrets already, I have to guess, and if you teach these people more, then they’ll understand better why secrets need to be kept. The one will happen naturally alongside the other.”

Fury regards him seriously. “Coulson thinks you could be one of our best tactical minds with maybe a year of training under your belt. I know you don’t want that, now. Hell, I wouldn’t give it to you until you managed to go at least a month without insulting me. You’re going to be a specialist because that’s what you do, and unless you die horribly on a mission, which even though you’re a wiseass and annoying, I hope you don’t, at some point in the future, you’re not going to be able to be a specialist any more. This isn’t news to you, right?”

“I was more or less counting on dying horribly on a mission, but otherwise, yeah, I know. A guy like me only has a certain number of years in the field in him. I’ll have a few more than most because I’m a long range weapon, mostly, but yeah. I know I won’t be a sniper forever,” Clint says.

“No, you’ll be a sniper forever,” Fury disagrees. “But your weapon of choice may change over time, and I want to make sure you know this because I think it might actually help you avoid dying horribly on a mission. When you are done with the field, there’s still a place for you here, Barton. We can still use you as a weapon, and we might even occasionally send you out because even when you do pass your prime, I’m betting you’ll be better than almost anyone else we have. But be that as it may, you won’t find yourself at loose ends when your aim isn’t perfect anymore. So try to stay alive.”

Clint thinks he might have just gotten the Nick Fury version of a pep talk, and feels a little dazed about it, but says, “Yes, sir.”

“Maxwell is currently solo,” Fury says. “Take a shot at him.”

Clint blinks. “Did you just pun?”

“I don’t pun,” Fury says flatly.

“Of course not,” Clint says, biting the inside of his cheek hard. “My mistake, sir.”

Lacking any better options, Clint pulls up a piece of floor next to Maxwell, who turns to look at him with mild curiosity.

“I’ve been voted best suited to tell you you’ve got some options,” Clint says.

Maxwell gives him a long look, and then leans forward to put his computer down. “Options for what?” He doesn’t look or sound suspicious; just a little weary.

“About what you’re going to do when this shitstorm is over,” Clint says bluntly. “About how you’re going to handle being outed as a submissive to all the other junior agents. Should I list them, or have you got ideas of your own?”

Maxwell glances over his shoulder at Hill’s back, then back at Clint. He doesn’t say anything, but it isn’t really necessary.

“She probably would,” Clint says, “but you’re in a fucked up place right now, Jason. You’re down for the first time in four years, and your perspective on life is definitely got to be kind of skewed by that.”

Maxwell smiles tiredly. “Stipulated,” he says. “What kind of options?”

“Do you want to go back to being a junior agent?” Clint asks.

“It’s the only thing I know how to do, so it’s not really a fair question,” Maxwell says. “Though if you’re worried, I’m crystal clear on how difficult that kind of transition back into the ranks would be.”

Clint is relieved. “Are you especially in love with being an analyst?”

“It’s something I like and am good at,” Maxwell says. “I honestly feel like I can’t answer that question, Barton. I don’t honestly know if I can answer any questions like those.”

“Clint,” Clint says. “And I kind of figured, but I still felt like I had to ask. Everyone who’s opinion I care about thinks the best thing for you is to go ahead and take the asset-slash-specialist placement tests.”

Maxwell’s gaze sharpens a little, but he just tilts his head, which Clint figures means he should go on.

“I don’t know a lot about it, really. I kind of got placed before I got here. But from what I know, they’re made to figure out how you tick, and then pair you up with a handler that will complement you.” Maxwell glances back over his shoulder again. “She’ll probably take them, too,” Clint says. “That’s what Phil is talking to her about. The thing is, the two of you obviously like each other, but like I said, your headspace is fucked up. If Hill wants to stake a claim, nobody would stop her. They wouldn’t make her, or you, test. But there is no way of knowing if, six months from now, the two of you are going to realize that you’re a bad fit. I get why she wants you. You have a huge talent spread.” Maxwell blushes, and Clint feels a little uncomfortable at the idea that he’s essentially handling Maxwell, even if it’s only a little, but plows ahead anyway. “And, aside from being kind of scary, Hill is awesome in a lot of ways, and I get why you would want her. But she’s also only the second dominant you’ve interacted with since this started, and she’s working pretty hard to keep you settled. It’s hard not to want someone who’s willing to work to keep you settled. But that’s not necessarily what’s going to work for you long term, Jason. You don’t even know what’s going to work for you long term. Hill doesn’t either. Sitwell doesn’t, and I don’t, and Phil doesn’t.”

“He lets you call him Phil?” Maxwell asks curiously, and Clint is momentarily at a loss.

Because, actually, Clint isn’t supposed to call him Phil, with the exception of sex, and honestly isn’t sure when he even started thinking of him as Phil. Was it the last time? Has he actually _been_ calling him Phil out loud, as well as in his own head. He tries to think of the last time he’d thought of Phil as ‘Coulson’ and just can’t figure it out.

Maxwell is watching him thoughtfully, and Clint shrugs a little. “Sort of,” he says. “Sometimes I forget.” Clint shakes his head. “Beside the point. The point is, the tests will help narrow down what you need in a way that the people here can use to match you up with someone who can give you what you need.”

“Considering my ‘fucked up’ headspace, is it even useful to take the tests right now?” Maxwell asks.

Clint honestly has no idea, but chooses not to pass that on to Maxwell. “I don’t think anyone means for you to take them right now,” he says instead. “I think we’re all just stuck right where we are until this huge and horribly difficult and dangerous mission is over, and then we’ll see. But they don’t want either of you to decide you’re soulmates until you’ve got some backup data on that.”

Maxwell snorts. They are both silent for several seconds.

“You want some advice?” Clint asks finally.

“I don’t think advice could actually hurt anything,” Maxwell says.

“Let Hill work you through this, while you’re here, but go home with Sitwell. The two of them are different, and will take care of you in different ways. I don’t know that you’ll end up with either of them, but it will clear your head a little, I think, to have that kind of contrast.”

“That is,” Maxwell says, sounding a little surprised, “pretty good advice, actually.”

“It’s bound to happen occasionally,” Clint says, and Maxwell chuckles.

They sit there for another minute or so.

“I didn’t thank you,” Maxwell says.

“I didn’t need you to,” Clint say honestly, and Maxwell smiles. 

“I need to…” he gestures toward his computer.

“Yeah, my ass is falling asleep on the floor anyway,” Clint says, which isn’t true -- his ass is a little tender on the floor, but not falling asleep -- but levers himself up anyway.

Phil and Fury are talking quietly, and Clint moves close enough to make himself obtrusive, but not close enough to overhear. Phil, though, just gestures him over. “She wants the caveat that if Maxwell tests within even half her range, she has the option of choosing him,” Phil is saying.

Fury frowns a little, but nods. “While that’s not exactly fair, it does prove that she’s willing to fight for him, which is a good sign. She hasn’t had a submissive in a long time.” Fury turns to Clint. “And Maxwell.”

“Doesn’t want to take the tests until the mission is done, which I think is fair. I suggested he let Hill handle him while he is working directly with her, but when it’s time to go home for the day, he should let Sitwell take him. He agreed,” Clint says.

“Why?” Phil asks, looking deeply interested. 

“Because they are two very different types of dominants,” Clint says. “I think it’ll give him some perspective, just in the way that they each choose to take care of him. A kind of contrast situation that may clarify what he needs as a submissive, which isn’t something he’s thought about in a long time.” Clint shrugs a little self-consciously. “Because splitting time between Hill and Sitwell isn’t going to hurt anything, and might help.” He shrugs again. “He actually thinks it’s a good idea, which I’m betting is some of his analytical mind coming into play. He may not really want that, but I think he sees the need.”

Phil and Fury are both looking at him, and Clint has to fight the urge not to shuffle his feet.

“I don’t see how it could hurt, and if Maxwell thinks it’s a good idea, I’m inclined to make it official,” Fury says. “I’ll get with Maria on this one. Sitwell should be showing up shortly anyway.”

Phil nods. “In the meantime, if you don’t need us here, we’ve got some minor things to go over that we can do at home.”

Fury waves a hand at Phil. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know, but I’m betting we don’t get anything actionable until day after tomorrow at the soonest.” He rubs at his face with one hand. “See anything we missed?” he asks Phil.

Phil frowns a little. “More bases than seems likely, if we go by the locations Hale’s maps indicated the submissives eventual destinations are. I want satellite imagery for all of those areas -- yes, I’m sure you’ve got someone on it already, but my point is, even if Hydra has twice as many bases as we’ve ever had intel on, there are still too many possibilities on the map. It’s possible Hale’s information was to… waypoints, rather than actual bases. Places where the submissives were picked up by Hydra forces and then transported elsewhere. Satellite views should show where we actually have compounds and where we don’t.”

“We’ve got technical working on sorting out images,” Fury says. “A lot of these places don’t get great coverage, but we’ve got a call in to Stark to borrow his network.” Fury’s expression is a little sour. “He’s got the best system in the world, and I’d be happy for him, except for the fact that we can’t get a hacker in here that can let us use it.”

“He’s not always been helpful in the past,” Phil says neutrally.

“I’m going to have to give him more information than I want to, but I’m pretty sure he’ll help,” Fury says grudgingly.

Phil nods. “With details, that would be my read on him, too.”

Fury looks sort of satisfied to hear it. “Anyway, I’ll get with you when we know something. We’ve still got time before we’re likely to hear anything.”

“Do we at least know they got in?” Clint asks.

“We do,” Phil says. “Maria filled me in, I’ll catch you up, but we do know that they got in, and we’ve got people there to watch for them to exit and get their intel to us. If they don’t exit in three days, we’ll extract.”

Clint nods, satisfied with that answer.

“Let’s go home,” Phil says. “I have a thousand emails to answer.”

“That sounds thrilling for me, sir,” Clint says drily, and nearly thinks he catches Fury smirking from the corner of his eye; by the time he turns to look, Fury looks as surly as ever. Clint assumes that he must smile sometimes, but he can’t prove it.

“You’ve got reading to do, and reports to flesh out, plus what Adria gave you to memorize,” Phil says.

“Even. More. Thrilling. Sir.” Clint says sardonically.

Phil sighs. “You’re the worst,” he says, though since he doesn’t say the worst _what_ , Clint is going to take it as a compliment.

“Yes, sir,” he agrees, and follows Phil when he leaves the war room.

They stop by requisitions on the way back to their quarters, and Clint gets a new watch, a laptop computer, and a tablet of his very own. He requests, and is not granted, an iPod. He sulks all the way to their door, at which point it occurs to him that he has all his credentials now, and can simply go and buy an iPod. In fact, now that he has an ironclad alias, even if it is his own actual identity, he could go anywhere he likes.

“Can we leave the base?” Clint asks, mostly to check to see that he hasn’t overlooked some reason why he can’t.

“Where do you want to go?” Phil asks, side-eyeing him curiously.

“Not anywhere, exactly, or at least not tonight,” Clint says. “I’m just asking if I could. If I wanted to.”

“Yes, theoretically, you could,” Phil says, and thumbs open the lock to their quarters, letting Clint precede him inside. “If we weren’t in the middle of a major operation during which we want to be able to put our hands on you at a moments notice.”

“Ah,” Clint says, only a little disappointed.

“If you didn’t want to go far or be gone too long, we could probably go out tomorrow,” Phil says, looking far more like he understands than Clint likes. “Or you could check out a car and go by yourself. You’d have to be able to get back here within an hour or so, but you could go buy an iPod or some street clothes, if that’s what you had in mind.”

Clint grins a little. “Maybe if tomorrow gets really boring,” he says. Phil’s easiness at the idea makes Clint relax. He doesn’t really need anything. He just wants to know that he could go get it, if he did. “What horrible thing are you making me do?”

“We’re setting up your email, oh the horror,” Phil says, deadpan.

It only takes about ten minutes, once Phil tears open the envelope Adria had given Clint, which contains, among other things, his secure sign on to SHIELD’s network. Once he’s in, their dashboard is easy enough to navigate. At the top of the screen, next to his SHIELD identification number (which he is forced to memorize, and Phil threatens to periodically quiz him on) and name are the words: ACCESS UNLIMITED.

“That’s temporary,” Phil says. “As long as we’re working this mission. Once it’s done, you’ll drop down to level ten, which is my access.”

“How many levels are there?” Clint asks.

Phil smirks. “No one but Fury actually knows that. I know Hill has clearance higher than mine, and Fury has clearance higher than Hill’s, so I’m speculating at least twelve, but something about big organizations make them like meaningful numbers, so I’m betting there are thirteen.”

“I have the same access you have, really?” Clint asks dubiously. “I mean, it’s my third day.”

“It’s mostly precautionary,” Phil says. “If I hadn’t spoken to Fury about it, you’d probably have pulled a seven or an eight, but I want to be able to talk with you about whatever I’m working on, or that SHIELD is working on, because frankly you’ve got a kind of ‘streetwise’ thing going on, where you know a little bit about everything because you’ve had to know to survive. I think your insights will sometimes be valuable.”

Clint wants to preen a little at the ‘streetwise’ comment while he remains dubious about being insightfully helpful. He shrugs. “I’ll help if I can,” he says, sorting through the half dozen passports under different aliases including picture I.D.s and credit cards. “They don’t kid around with your aliases,” Clint says.

“You’ll find they all have birth certificates, school records, medical histories, credit histories, bank accounts, and most of them own property,” Phil says, amused.

“I hope they all pay their taxes,” Clint says, and shuffles them off into a little pile on one side of the coffee table. “How long before I need to have all of these memorized?”

“The general details, name, date of birth, place of birth, social security number, try to get those right away. Usually before you need an alias, you’ll have time to prepare yourself to use it. If you can manage it all and keep it untangled, it’s great, but you probably won’t need it.”

“I have a good memory,” Clint says, sounding a little defensive to his own ears. “I didn’t go to school much, but I can read, and I’m not stupid.”

Phil looks a little alarmed. “Clint, if you were anything other than incredibly smart, you’d have been dead years ago,” he says very seriously. “I’m not questioning your ability to do it; I’m saying there’s rarely any need to do it that way.”

Clint feels his cheeks heat a little and looks away. “Sore spot,” he says apologetically.

“I didn’t mean to step on it,” Phil says softly. “But my point still stands. You wouldn’t be able to do what you do if you weren’t just as intellectually gifted as you are physically gifted. Not solo, the way you have for the last decade and change. If you weren’t extremely smart, you’d have needed someone to plan for you.”

Clint grins. “So I’m a genius, you’re telling me,” he says.

“Yes, Clint, you’re a genius,” Phil says, his tone of voice conveying an eye roll that doesn’t actually physically happen. “And geniuses fill out their mission reports.”

Clint’s inbox bleeps at him. He opens the email, and sees it’s a mostly filled out mission report from the first day. Clint scrolls through it, curious as to what parts Phil has filled in for him, but honestly, it’s very Dragnet: Just the facts, ma’am. Clint fills in the maybe three blank fields, and encounters a freeform report area that Phil has already taken care of. He reads through it anyway, finding it a flatly factual account down to every detail Phil had known, the wording so stark it’s almost sharp. Clint thinks it would take him at least six times as long to pare a report down to something like Phil’s razor-thin but entirely accurate narrative. “They’re going to expect me to be able to do this?” he asks, actively trepidatious about it. “Fill them out like you did, really short and precise?”

Phil frowns faintly. “It’s encouraged, but it’s not a requirement,” he says. “Why?”

Clint leans back against the couch and frowns a little, an idea circling in his head that he isn’t sure how to convey. “This report is right,” he says finally, slowly. “There’s nothing wrong about it. But it’s not how I would have written it. Is this the kind of thing I’m going to have to take a class in or something?”

“Would yours have been longer, or shorter?” Phil asks.

“Longer,” Clint says. “A lot longer, probably.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” Phil says, lip quirking a little. “More information is always better than not enough. With a little time and practice, you’ll figure out a report-writing style that works for you, and as long as you’re not leaving details out, SHIELD is fine with that. There may be times when you write a report that I’ll come back to you and question salient details about, but that would be more for my understanding, or to make it clear to you that such details should be included. Don’t worry about it for now. There isn’t a class. Well, there is, actually, but I’m not going to make you take it.”

“What if I suck at it?” Clint asks.

“If you really actually suck at it, which I don’t think you will, then I’ll take your reports verbally until you figure out what you’re doing.” Phil looks supremely unworried.

Clint is reassured (in spite of the fact that he doesn’t especially want to worry about shit like reports), and saves the report and sends it back to Phil’s email.

“I honestly have a backlog here,” Phil says seriously. “Did you still want to read the reports on Ten Rings and Hydra?”

“Sure, yeah,” Clint says, and he does, but he already feels a little restless, and he’s not sure how he’ll do sitting down and reading right now. It’s not something he usually has a problem with; when Clint was with the circus, he’d spend hours every day at the public library of whatever town they were in, reading everything he could get his hands on, but this is different. The waiting on intel is itching at him, and again, waiting is something he’s good at; you have to be able to wait if you’re a sniper. It’s the waiting on someone else that’s got him so restless. Usually he’s getting his own intel.

Phil gives him a long look, and says, “Your tablet has text-to-speech software, if you want to use it.”

Clint pauses. “And do what with it?” he asks. “Take a bath?”

Phil smirks, but says, “I usually exercise while I listen.”

“That’s… that’s a fucking brilliant idea,” Clint says, and immediately pulls up the right file, only getting a little lost in the menus while he’s finding the text-to-speech application.

And it works like a dream, too. Clint does a steady fifty rep right handed push ups, regular push ups, sit ups, crunches, repeat, while information magically takes up residence in his brain (or at least, that’s what it feels like) and he starts to feel like he understands more of what Phil had meant about the Mandarin not necessarily having something lying in wait for them after this mess is cleared up. He thinks it’s possible the Mandarin may be distracting them from something he wants to do while SHIELD is doing other things, but he gets why Phil doesn’t think that whatever it is has anything to do with bringing SHIELD down. It’s just not his style. The Ten Rings is in it for the anarchy, but also in it for their own benefit. They may have something waiting to go off while SHIELD takes care of Hydra and Von Doom and AIM, but it probably won’t be an attack. It will be something that the Mandarin wants to accomplish unnoticed, while all of SHIELD’s eyes and ears are in other places.

“Still dangerous,” Clint pants, and slides to his feet. He uses a hand towel to wipe off his bare chest -- the vest had been removed almost immediately -- which is sweaty, and then at his face, which is even sweatier.

Phil is giving him an exasperated look. “Don’t wipe your sweat all over dish towels, Clint,” he says. “Go get a bath towel or something. And take that and put it in the laundry so I don’t actually try drying my freshly washed hands or clean dishes with it.”

Clint blinks at him, and then laughs, hysterically amused that Phil can rim Clint until he’s begging, suck his cock and swallow with apparent pleasure, leave Clint plugged and full of lube and Phil’s come, but objects to the use of the inappropriate towel for getting the sweat off after a workout.

Phil is smiling faintly, the tops of his cheeks faintly pink. “I may have sounded slightly more like my mother than I’m entirely comfortable with just then,” he says.

Clint laughs until his eyes blur, and even as he’s doing it, he knows he’s losing all sense of perspective about Phil, because Clint thinks it’s a-fucking-dorable the way just the tops of Phil’s cheeks go pink when he’s embarrassed, and the bemused slant to his brows makes Clint want to smooth them out with his thumbs, and even the dish towel thing is charming instead of annoying, and he had knelt at Phil’s feet and let him lock a collar around Clint’s throat.

The amusement fades into something a little confusing, like hunger with some kind of hurt behind it, like it had been on the streets that first year after he’d killed Trickshot, when he’d get so hungry it felt like something was hollowing him out from the inside, except this time he knows he could fill that hollowness, he could ease that hurt, if he just could make himself stop being afraid of what he might be giving up.

Phil Coulson is _not_ Trickshot, goddamnit. 

“Clint?” Phil says, brows no longer bemused but drawn down a little, his eyes worried at whatever he sees on Clint’s face. Clint has no idea what that might be, but he knows something about it. He knows he’s losing the ability to censor himself around Phil.

He walks over to where Phil is working on the couch (in a way that is oddly un-Phil-like, his laptop propped up on a pillow, while Phil sits sideways on the couch, legs folded up under him, slouched a little forward, as if he doesn’t realize that Phil Coulson is never allowed to slouch, and _especially_ not if he’s still wearing most of his suit) and sits down next to, except sort of behind Phil. Phil turns his head to one side, but doesn’t try to shift around to look at Clint when Clint leans against his back with one shoulder.

“Your other specialists,” Clint says, and then isn’t sure what he wants to know about them. Finally, he asks, “They lived with you like this?”

“Yes,” Phil says. “Although I was mostly in the field with them, so we didn’t spend a lot of time at HQ. I haven’t had a specialist in five years.”

Clint blinks a little at that. “Why not?”

“Mostly because I moved up out of the position,” Phil says. “I was already doing most of what I’m doing now, and after I transitioned the last one over to another handler, I just didn’t pick another one.”

“Will I get… transitioned?” Clint asks, trying to keep his voice as bland as possible in spite of the way his heart rate spikes and that hollow space in his chest aches.

“No,” Phil says calmly. “I’ll keep you until you decide you don’t need a handler anymore.”

Which settles Clint a little, but, “What do you mean, when I decide? Don’t all specialists have handlers?”

“Yes. So until you don’t want to be a specialist anymore, or you decide you don’t want to be my specialist anymore, I’ll continue on as your handler.” Phil pauses for a few seconds, and then adds, “I’m still fully qualified as a senior field agent, Clint. You’ll do missions without me, when I’d just get in your way, but you’ll do at least as many with me.”

“What about the rest of your job?” Clint asks carefully.

“Some of it can be done from the field,” Phil says. “Some of it can be allocated elsewhere. Sitwell is primed for a lot of it, honestly. Especially as long as he doesn’t have a specialist of his own; I can have his baby agents and analysts report to someone else and free up some of his time. He hates them anyway.” Phil sounds amused. “I don’t blame him; they’re a waste of his time. But someone has to do it. I’ll look into rerouting them.”

Clint is silent for a few seconds. “Am I a demotion?” he asks finally.

“No,” Phil says a little sharply. “I went to bat for you when you were still tied up naked and drooling in Norway, and if things had gone another way, if you’d decided to take the asset route, I would have dealt with it, but I’ve gone to bat for this job every time the subject has come up, Clint. I _want_ to be your handler. And we’re not strangers anymore. I know exactly what a pain in the ass you’re going to be, and I still want to be your handler.”

“Then. I guess I don’t understand,” Clint says. “I thought, when we were in Norway, that the specialist/handler thing was pretty much permanent, barring some kind of catastrophic failure to work together. That’s what it sounded like to me. And that’s what it sounds like you’re saying now, to me. That this is permanent. So… what did your other specialist do to get transitioned out?”

“I’ve had nine specialists,” Phil says. “And before you ask, yes, I’m good at this, or they wouldn’t keep giving me more specialists.” His tone is wry, and Clint grins a little. “Pairings that work really well together tend to stay together, but logistically, that can’t always happen. My first specialist, Robin, was a linguist, fluent in twelve languages. I know five very well and another two or three well enough to get by, but while we worked well together, when a handler that covered her talent spread and had a few new languages to teach her opened up, it didn’t make any sense to keep her with me. I was fond of her, we did well together, but there wasn’t anything deeper there.” He pauses for a long moment; Clint can just sort of sense that it’s a pause, that Phil isn’t done talking. “It hasn’t been quite like that with the rest of them, though.” 

Phil shifts and leans back experimentally against Clint’s shoulder; Clint firms it up to hold Phil’s weight and Phil relaxes into the support. “It’s a long story, but I kind of made a reputation for myself as a senior field agent for taking fucked up field agents and un-fucking them. Fury seemed to think that skill might translate, so I ended up with specialists with issues, which is okay with me, actually. It’s in my nature to want to help fucked up people be less fucked up. And I’m good at it. I handled them until they settled, and none of them were bad specialists. I worked well with all of them, a couple of them extremely well, but once the problem areas were handled, I was proud of them and pleased for them, but those are things you feel about younger siblings or very junior agents who do remarkable things, not the way you feel about someone who lives in your pocket and eats every meal with you and sleeps in bed with you at night. Once they were sorted, they wanted other things, too. They wanted a handler that felt things a little more fervent than ‘proud and pleased’ and I. Well, I wanted a specialist I felt more fervently about, too. So it just got to be a kind of strange routine. Hill used to say I was a halfway house for specialists. If they had one with a ton of potential and a boatload of issues, they sent him or her to me, we worked together for a while, and when they had only a small kayak of issues, I had them test again and combed through handler’s test results, and transitioned them out. I don’t think anyone meant for it to happen like that. Aside from my first specialist, I didn’t even test for any of the others. They were mostly ones that had taken the tests, been matched with a handler, and things fell apart.” Clint feels Phil shrug. “I did it because I was good at it and someone needed to do it, or we ran the risk of losing their skills.”

“Did you ever get a submissive?” Clint asks, because he has to know. He has to know if he’s going to be trying to live up to that.

“No, and it’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about, the way a quarter of our submissives, especially new ones, aren’t actually genuine submissives that’s just insidious.” He turns a little, not to look at Clint -- he seems to understand that Clint doesn’t want to have this conversation face to face -- but to emphasize what he’s saying. “I worked almost exclusively with newly recruited specialists, which means I worked with people that were cross-trained as submissives. I told you that there were a couple that I worked exceptionally well with; they were both switches. So some actual submissive needs there, but the cross-training doesn’t erase the needs of your entire dynamic. I ended up with fucked up specialists because cross-training fucks up specialists.”

“What would they be?” Clint asks. “I mean, pretend all the people acting in submissive capacities were actually submissives. All the assets and specialists that are actually oriented as switches or dominants, with the kind of skills that you have to have to be an asset or a specialist… My point is, what position would that be called? Do we have a group like that and I just don’t know about it?”

“They’re called senior field agents, generally,” Phil says, chuckling a little. “If I’d have come into SHIELD now, with my skill set as it was when I actually did join many many years ago, I’d have been cross-trained as an asset in a heartbeat. It wouldn’t have taken. I’m too strong a dominant. But it was in the contract even then that you take submissive cross-training if necessary for your position at SHIELD. What that meant, then, though, was that if you were a dominant and a spy, gatherer of intel, seducer, Mata Hari-type, you cross-trained as a submissive, too, in order to be able to pass as what you were trying to project. Most of those types, the assets and specialists, even now, are cross-trained as dominants, too, because sometimes you need to be what you really aren’t. This is all… God, Clint, there would normally be months of training and all kinds of reading material that would explain things, and half the time I just assume you already know because you always seem to be following along.” Phil shakes his head. “For the love of God, ask questions; it reminds me that you don’t have the kind of background I’m used to dealing with.”

“I am,” Clint points out. “Asking questions, I mean.”

“I know,” Phil says, and chuckles again. “I mean any time, though. Any time you’re curious or you don’t get why something went a certain way, just ask anything that comes into your head, until this mess is over with and I can actually sit you down and tell you everything you really need to know.”

“That sounds like the long and boring way to do it,” Clint says, but nudges his shoulder playfully against Phil’s back. “This way is more interesting.”

Phil laughs softly. “Anyway, yes, those people are senior field agents, and I was recruited in from the Marines expressly to be a senior field agent. It still requires you to go through standard training, but I was a junior agent for less than three months and a field agent for less than six, so by the time I’d been here fourteen months, I was a senior field agent. There’s no division, though, the way that assets and specialists are divided. There are some specialist-quality senior field agents out there, but as a whole, SFAs have to be very good at a large number of things across the board. It’s not that we don’t have specializations; it’s more like we don’t have time to devote to nothing but our specialization, so it never really gets the attention to get to its full potential. There are some exceptions, but for the most part, that’s where the dominants with your kinds of skills go.” Phil pauses. “Oh, but, my point was that, remember your first night here, I told you thirty percent of the missing people came directly from the military?”

“Right,” Clint says. “And that’s where we’d be doing most of our submissive recruiting from, most likely.”

“Exactly,” Phil says. “That’s what makes this so insidious. We barely even noticed until we were already about one quarter compromised, and even then there’s no way to know how far it would have gone before someone actually realized how dangerous our position was. And that’s assuming that Von Doom, Hydra, and AIM hadn’t already set things off with some kind of horrific shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans,” Clint repeats, chortling. Phil bumps back against Clint’s shoulder.

They’re both silent for several seconds. Clint wants to keep his mouth shut. He has some answers to some things he had wanted to know, though not all the answers to all the things he wants to know. But to get all the answers, he’d have to ask all the questions, and all the questions are fairly transparent. This conversation was good, though, Clint feels good about it, and it would be a good idea to let it end here. Maybe convince Phil to go to bed with him, even though Clint isn’t sure he can actually handle Phil’s cock again today, even if he still wants it.

But the tattoo is itching above his collarbone, Phil’s name melded with Clint’s bow inked harmoniously under his skin, and he hears himself say, “If we pull this off, there is going to be a massive influx of combat trained submissives looking for places to fight.”

“Not as many as you think,” Phil says, sounding certain. “You can’t really judge because you’re a fighter by nature, but with the possible exception of the subs taken out of the military, I’m betting less than a tenth of them will want to stay in any kind of combat capacity. They didn’t get picked because they had a propensity for combat. They were just in the wrong places at the wrong times.”

Clint considers that for a few long moments. Phil is right; but he personally can’t imagine spending any length of time being trained for combat and then going home and becoming an accountant or something. “Still. A lot of combat ready submissives with issues are likely to be coming our way. Real subs.”

Phil goes still for several seconds, and then leans away from Clint, pushing his laptop out of the way. He turns around to face Clint, and Clint can feel his cheeks heating. He wishes he’d taken his own advice and let the conversation end. Convinced Phil to take him to bed and see what it would be like to try to give him a handjob.

“If Fury offered you a senior field agent position tomorrow, would you take it, Clint?” Phil asks. “You’re overqualified as hell, but if you want it, I’ll make it happen.”

Clint shakes his head. “I want to be a specialist. I’m not trying to get out of anything.”

“I didn’t think you were,” Phil says quietly. “But that’s my point. Maybe specialist isn’t the perfect fit for your dynamic, but it works for you, and you’re content with it. Yes?”

“Yes,” Clint says, flushing a little, but emphatic.

“I want you as my specialist. I will still go to bat for this job, I don’t care if Fury has a dozen submissives with issues he wants me to handle. I’m content with what you can give me. I’m not looking to trade up, here, Clint.” Phil looks pained. “I wish I knew a way to tell you that and make you believe it. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not you’re an actual submissive; it matters that you want to be here, and you want me to handle you, and you want to give me whatever you can give. Is all of that true?”

“Yeah,” Clint says hoarsely. “I’m where I want to be.”

“Then you’re where we both want you to be,” Phil says firmly, and slides a hand up to tug gently at Clint’s collar. He regards Clint for several long moments, and then says, “No more reports tonight. My eyes are crossing trying to look at the screen. Let’s go to bed.”

Clint is indecisive. In the end, he admits, “I’m not sure I can…”

Phil snorts inelegantly, which makes Clint blink with surprise that quickly morphs into chuckles, which Phil blithely ignores. “I didn’t think you could,” he says, possibly faintly smugly. “Let’s just go to sleep. We were up early, and it’s already late.”

Clint smiles a little. “Yeah, okay.”

\--

Clint wakes up with Phil’s hand wrapped around his cock, and arches into it, sighing out a little moan.

“Turn over,” Phil says. “Facing me.”

Clint twists around obediently, and sees that Phil’s head is tipped down, looking at his own hand wrapped around Clint’s cock. Clint looks down between their bodies, and they both watch as Phil strokes him, the head of Clint’s cock disappearing into Phil’s fist, and then peeking out again when he pulls his hand down. Phil looks up again, so Clint does, too, a question sitting somewhere on the back of his tongue which he never gets to ask, as Phil leans in and kisses him. Clint registers Phil’s morning breath for about half a second before Phil’s hand firmly stroking Clint’s cock wipes the idea clean of his mind, and Clint is kissing back.

They have been kissing, off and on, it’s happened a few times, but this is different. Clint’s cock is throbbing in Phil’s hand, and Phil’s mouth is feverish and demanding, forceful enough that Clint’s head rocks back and Phil’s free hand is abruptly cradling the back of Clint’s neck, giving Clint that immediate sense of ease, the feeling that he is being taken care of, and Phil’s mouth only becomes more insistent. Clint is giving back as good as he’s getting, but he’s moaning a little into it, something about the feel of all three things together -- Phil’s hand on his neck, Phil’s mouth attacking his, Phil’s firm hand tight around his cock -- doing something hot and eager to Clint’s mind and body. He rocks his hips a little, and Phil tightens his grip on Clint’s cock, and Clint has no problem understanding the unspoken order to be still.

He isn’t sure how long it goes on, only that Phil doesn’t seem to be in a hurry, jerking Clint hard but slow, his mouth working Clint’s over, while the hand on the back of Clint’s neck keeps him steady and calm. Clint’s mouth is feeling bruised and he’s gasping needily into Phil’s mouth by the time he comes, almost as slowly as everything else, the slow unfurling of an orgasm he hadn’t been straining for that makes Clint shudder and moan as he spills over Phil’s hand.

“Good,” Phil murmurs against Clint’s lips, and then slides his mouth down to bite gently at Clint’s throat. “Feeling you come apart like that, Clint, that was so good for me.” His hand is still cradling the back of Clint’s neck, and Clint merely pants heavily, mind a little sprawled with satisfaction. “I’d love to fuck you, but I want to give you a little more time to recover from yesterday,” Phil tells him. Clint is a little disappointed, but suspects Phil is right about the need for a little more recovery time. “But I want something, if you can do it.”

Phil shifts up to look at Clint, eyes blown dark with arousal. Clint is a little mesmerised at the way he looks, wanting, but gentle, nothing sharp about it, just the same kind of slow burn of desire that he’d just pulled from Clint.

Clint’s knee-jerk response is to agree without even knowing what it is, without setting any limits, and he barely has the presence of mind to reel himself a little back, and even then, it’s mostly because of the way Phil had said it, that he wanted something _if_ Clint could do it. “What?” Clint asks, voice a little husky with arousal at Phil’s arousal.

“I want to jerk off on you,” Phil says. “Just have you lay back and jerk off looking at you, and then come on you, on your face, if you’ll let me.” Phil’s voice is still warm with arousal, but his tone is careful, as though he wants Clint to be sure he can object if he wants to.

Clint has no urge to object, and is sharply and unexpectedly aroused at the idea of getting to watch Phil work over his own cock. He smiles a little, and Phil’s lips curl faintly. “I hope you’ve got good aim,” Clint says. “If you get me in the eye, I’m going to be irate.”

Phil releases Clint’s neck and kneels up, straddling Clint’s ribs. It’s with a little jolt of shock and lust that Clint realizes that Phil is going to use Clint’s come to slick himself up, and Clint breathes out a little heavily just at the sight of it, and at the sight of Phil’s big cock, hard and above Clint.

He thinks again, in that half-bemused way, that when Phil isn’t using his cock in Clint, or about to, Clint can look at it and think of how handsome it is, and never mind how ridiculous the word seems. It’s appropriate somehow. The sheer size of it, the understanding of its power is too obvious to describe it as beautiful, the word too feminine somehow to work, but shapely, well-made, straight and thick and perfectly proportioned.

Clint isn’t surprised at all when Phil takes himself in both hands -- as big as he is, he can hardly imagine how he’d manage one handed -- and begins a short, rough series of strokes, Clint’s come making the sound of it slick and obscene.

“Jesus Christ,” Clint says from between dry lips, his gaze locked on Phil’s cock and his hands, white-knuckled around it, though he doesn’t miss other things, from the edges of his vision, the bunch and curl of Phil’s biceps and the flexing ripple of the muscles of his belly as he rocks through his hands. Clint can feel the bunch and release of the muscles of Phil’s thighs against his ribs, and he shivers a little, and half-considers telling Phil that Clint is recovered, or recovered enough anyway, and just to go ahead and use that thing in him. He only doesn’t because he can’t quite bring himself to give away how much he wants that, though that’s not quite true either. He also doesn’t do it because Phil had said he wanted this, and Clint is helplessly inclined to give Phil what he wants.

He glances up at Phil’s face and sees his eyes half-lidded and glittering as he gazes down at Clint, face set in lines of concentration and effort, but he can’t seem to keep his gaze off of Phil’s hands, Phil’s cock, the short, hard tugs that he’s giving himself that are turning the head of his cock darker, almost purple, and have to be hurting at least a little, even with Clint’s come to ease them. Moisture beads at the tip of Phil’s cock, a thick clear drop and Clint feels his mouth start to water with real surprise. He remembers the taste of Phil, and he remembers how it hadn’t called up anything from the past that Clint wants to stay behind him forever.

He isn’t sure what it means, and pushes it back for now, watching instead, taking in the shuddering of Phil’s thighs with a kind of momentarily shocked pleasure, something that bubbles up into his hindbrain automatically, the idea that Phil wants to come on Clint, wants to pump his cock until he spurts on Clint’s face, badly enough that he’s obviously already close to doing so. Maybe part of that had been Phil already being worked up from jerking Clint off, and that idea sends up another kind of pleasure bubbling up into the back of Clint’s mind, the idea that Phil had taken pleasure in giving Clint pleasure, that this thing, this time, is a two way street, which is nothing like Clint has ever known.

Trickshot had been in it for his own pleasure, and had been at best indifferent to Clint’s (and at worse, had actively worked against it), but Phil is not Trickshot. Phil isn’t like anyone but Phil, and it’s easier to believe than Clint would have ever imagined that Phil would actually enjoy getting Clint off. Hasn’t he done it every time? Hasn’t he made sure of Clint since the very beginning.

More clear liquid seeps from the slit of Phil’s cock, and Clint licks his dry lips. Phil makes a low, rough sound, and Clint hears himself speaking as if he were someone else, saying words Clint would have sworn he himself wouldn’t have thought to string together. “Come on, Phil, do it, you’ll have to show me how you like it, how to use both hands on you like that so that it’s good for you, come on.”

Phil takes a single shuddering breath, his hips snapping forward twice and his hand shifting a little around his shaft, aiming down, and comes in long, pale arcs of pearlescent fluid that strike Clint’s cheeks and lips and chin and then trail down his neck to dribble across his collarbones.

“Yeah,” Clint breathes, licking his lips, tasting salt and flat metallic bitterness, and it’s familiar but it doesn’t scare him, doesn’t send old horrors cascading into his mind, he thinks, he strongly suspects, because he had seen it coming, can see Phil right in front of him, cock now just dribbling along the backs of his fingers, nothing confusing about the source, and he is not afraid of Phil like that. Phil will never make him. Phil will probably never even suggest it. “You look,” Clint says, licking his lips again, but Phil doesn’t give him time to finish that sentence, is kissing Clint again with all of that feverish force, and then licking his own come from Clint’s lips and cheeks and tongue, following the dripping trail of it down his neck and across his collarbone, which he nips at lightly.

Clint just watches him, cock stirring again, but not urgently. Phil licks the come from the backs of his own fingers, and when he leans down to kiss Clint again he comes slow, like he thinks Clint might object, but Clint pushes half up onto one elbow to meet him, and they just kiss like that for most of several minutes, until the kiss gentles and tapers off naturally into the faint brush of lips every few seconds, a gentle nip, a parting lick, winding down in a way that is entirely new for Clint, and it’s… sweet, it’s something Clint doesn’t know, but it’s good and he likes it.

“Thank you,” Phil says, their faces still only a couple of inches apart. His gaze is warm and fond.

“Are you kidding me?” Clint says, completely honestly and almost as completely without any kind of forethought. “That was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. The fucking size of you, Phil. How old were you when you had to start jerking off with both hands to get off?”

Phil’s eyes brighten with mirth. “Fifteen,” he says. 

“You must have been a hit with the ladies,” Clint murmurs. “Or the boys. Whichever.”

“Actually, I was almost eighteen before I met someone that didn’t back out once they saw the whole package, and even then, we had to get creative to make it work without hurting her.” Phil shrugs. “Every guy wants to be hung, but in my experience, it’s not exactly all fun and games.”

Clint nods a little. “Yeah, but you seem to have figured it out.” 

Phil looks pleased. “I do my best. I’m going to get in the shower.” He kisses Clint briefly.


	14. Chapter 14

By the time Clint gets out of the shower, Phil has a cup of tea waiting for him; Clint’s head cocks as soon as he comes out of the bathroom, naked and still toweling off, his gaze scanning the room until it lights on the tea cup on the counter. He perks up and wanders into the kitchenette, where his cup is steaming energetically. Phil is wearing flannel pajama bottoms and sitting on the couch, still feeling a little loose and content in the afterglow. He’s cradling a cup of tea of his own, and he smiles when Clint abandons his towel across the tiny two-person table and goes for the tea.

“Do you even know how many things you do naked?” Phil asks, mildly amused. “You’re going to start giving me all kinds of inappropriate associations.”

“There are worse kinds of associations,” Clint says, and sips at his tea, closing his eyes a little in bliss. Phil has sweetened it just enough to make all the spices taste a little sharper, and Clint’s blissful expression seems to indicate that he approves.

“I’ll make you traditional chai, with steamed milk, sometime soon,” Phil says. “I think you’ll like it.”

“I’m taking your word for things I’ll like at this point,” Clint says, quirking his lips a little ruefully. “So far you’re better at knowing than I am.”

Phil actually feels his cheeks heat a little, and manfully ignores it (he’s pretty sure Clint notices, though he doesn’t say anything), but he smiles.

“Tell me we have things to do today,” Clint says; he’s taking big, gulping drinks of his tea. “I don’t want to be high maintenance, here, but I’m used to being busy pretty much all the time. I can wait on the intel, and I know we can’t go far, but I’ve got to have something to eat up some hours, Phil, or I’m gonna end up in the war room baiting Fury.”

Phil smirks. “You may get a chance to do that at least for a little while,” Phil says. “But, yes, I’ve got some plans for you. You still wanted to read the report on Hydra, which I encourage you to do at some point today, and you should feel free to use the gym any time you feel like it.”

“But specifically?” Clint asks.

“Specifically, the specialists do a ‘last man standing’ thing two or three times a week, and one of them is today. Hardison has your arrows ready and your new quiver designed, and wants you to work with them, preferably this morning, so he can get any issues addressed before you have to go out again.” Phil grins a little at Clint’s delight. “Kennet has asked for permission to borrow you for a couple of hours for some weapons testing. He went through me instead of asking you directly because he isn’t sure what your actual clearance level is, and apparently your clearance has to be fairly high to have access to these weapons. We’ll make sure he knows your clearance allows him to come to you directly with requests.”

Clint frowns a little at the same time that he’s looking faintly excited. “What could he have that would need such a high level of clearance?” he asks.

Phil just looks at him.

“You know, but you’re not going to tell me,” Clint accuses.

Phil blinks slowly.

“Because you’re a dick,” Clint adds.

Phil’s lips curl faintly. “The specialist event isn’t until mid-afternoon. I’m correct in assuming you want to participate?”

“You are, although I’m curious about the rules, here. Obviously we can’t do a whole lot of damage to each other.”

“It’s strictly bare-handed, and you can only participate once a week, otherwise the injuries would start to stack up, and there’d be too many people to keep track of what’s going on,” Phil says. “Some of the senior field agents are judges. I’m one of them on a fairly regular basis, but I won’t judge this one. I have a bias.”

Clint grins a little. “You’re sweet to say so, sir, but I’m fully aware that you’re only likely to go harder on me because I’m your specialist.”

Phil tips his head. “Possibly true, but irrelevant. It’s an informal competition and the rules are informal, but there are still rules. And, at any rate, it’s not until later. I thought we should take care of testing your new arrows first. Then, if you have time, you can do weapons-testing for Kennet before the free-for-all, and if you don’t have time, you can test after. At some point, some reading with light exercise. Maybe I’ll suck you off, later.”

Clint chokes on the last swallow of his tea, and Phil laughs softly and goes back to sipping at his own tea. There is something about making Clint look like that, surprised and cautiously anticipatory that Phil feels sure could become a serious addiction. He thinks again that Clint hasn’t ever really had anyone give him pleasure just for the sake of pleasure, hasn’t ever had his body worked over with hands and mouth just because someone finds him beautiful, and he wants to be the one to give those things to Clint. Even as he thinks it, he has a sharp little flashback to Clint yesterday, Clint on his knees in Phil’s office, his neck bent, waiting for Phil to collar him, finally, for real, and the look on Clint’s face. Another thing Phil would love the chance to become addicted to.

“Do you want the belt?” Clint asks, voice oddly inflected, a little diffident. He’s looking at Phil out of the corner of his eye and rolling his empty teacup between his hands at the same time.

Phil does, but if he’s putting Clint on exhibition against the other specialists later, he wants Clint to be able to perform as well as he possibly can, and he can’t be sure there would be time to get back here and get the belt off of him. “I’ll be with you all day,” Phil says. “And if you’re going hand to hand against opponents of your caliber, you won’t want the distraction.”

Clint looks thoughtful, nodding a little. He also looks faintly disappointed.

Phil considers that expression for a moment, and then, because Clint had put himself in Phil’s hands yesterday when he’d let him buckle the collar around his neck, he lets himself ask, “Do you need the belt, Clint?”

Clint looks at him, face almost expressionless, as though the question is entirely academic, and then rolls one shoulder. “I like it,” he says, soft, but with no real hesitation. “It settles me.”

“Do you need settling now?” Phil asks, because if Clint does, Phil will use the belt and figure out how to find the time to get it off of him later.

Clint’s lips quirk. “Not really. You coming all over me is still pretty fresh in my mind.” His eyes are faintly sultry, as though just remembering it is enough to heat him, and his cock fills out a little, half-hard against his naked thigh.

Phil resists the urge to take Clint straight back to bed. “After the match up, we’ll come back here and set you up with the belt,” Phil decides. It’s as much practicality as it is desire. He wants to fuck Clint tonight, and the wide plug does stretch Clint enough to make the process easier on Clint without taking away any of the effort, that almost-force thing, that Phil covets.

Clint nods easily. “Can I have more tea?” he asks.

“Sure,” Phil says. “Go get dressed, and I’ll make you another cup.”

Clint crosses the room to hand Phil his empty cup, hesitates for a second in front of Phil as though uncertain, and then leans down and presses a kiss against Phil’s jaw. He’s a little flushed when he pulls back, and he doesn’t meet Phil’s eyes as he turns away to get dressed, but Phil is still quietly and deeply thrilled that Clint had felt comfortable enough to do it outside of sex. A small gesture, but significant.

As he’s steeping another cup of chai for Clint, half an eye on the clock, he considers the ghost of the feel of Clint’s lips on his jaw and the dense, but somehow pleasant pressure behind his breastbone.

Phil presses a hand to his chest, a little bemused, but still pleased, and something else that’s a little sharper than that, something that feels soaring and victorious, and he wonders what had been going through Clint’s mind when he had leaned in and kissed Phil, wonders if Clint is feeling the same kind of cautious elation that is bubbling at the back of Phil’s mind. He hopes so, he realizes. He hopes… but he isn’t sure quite what his hope is. Just that the two of them are on the same page, that the feeling Phil is nursing isn’t only in his own mind.

He thinks of Clint on his knees, and the way Clint had looked up at him in those few moments, and he hopes. He’s not ready to put a name to that hope. There is too much to lose if it is only on Phil’s side of this unexpected and remarkable partnership they’ve slipped into, and Phil determinedly puts that out of his mind as he removes the tea ball from Clint’s cup and adds a sugar cube.

He only becomes aware of Clint standing close to him after the tea is done -- Clint can move like a ghost, and that’s saying something, as Phil is generally exquisitely aware of his surroundings -- and Clint murmurs, “Thanks,” almost in his ear.

“My pleasure,” Phil says softly, truthfully. Taking care of Clint is… good. It does something for Phil that he almost recognizes from handling specialists in the past, but this is deeper, more fundamentally satisfying, somehow. He passes the cup to Clint. Clint holds the cup to his lips and inhales deeply, his lashes fluttering. Phil shouldn’t be able to physically react to that innocent expression of pleasure on Clint’s face, not after what they’d just done, but he feels himself reacting anyway. “I’m going to get dressed,” Phil says, and Clint takes a short step back, though he’s still standing close enough to Phil that he brushes against Clint’s hip and shoulder as he moves by him.

He goes into the bedroom and just looks in the closet for a few moments, his suits hung chummily alongside Clint’s clothes, and it almost feels like he has to catch his breath. It’s only been a few days, and their spaces and their lives are already merging so quickly. He feels another tiny flare of that triumph that he isn’t trying to parse into anything more specific, and slips off his pajama pants and suits up with the quick ease of long practice.

Clint is sitting in Phil’s abandoned chair when he comes out of the bedroom, sipping his tea instead of gulping it this time, his face solemn and thoughtful.

“Do you think,” Clint asks, glancing at Phil from the corner of his eye, “that I could go with you to pick out some tea? I mean, once I’ve tried what you have and figured out what I like?”

“Of course,” Phil says, a little surprised, but still with that low, pleased feeling lurking in his chest. “We can get whatever you like.”

Clint smiles a little, almost bashfully, and returns his attention to his teacup.

“How does the tattoo feel?” Phil asks (his own still aches like a fresh bruise, but he’s left the bandage off, and his cuff isn’t causing him any discomfort).

“Just a little tender now,” Clint says. “Shouldn’t interfere with the pull of the bow. The one on my hip is a little sorer still, but I didn’t use real bandages on either of them, just the spray stuff.”

Phil nods. “Good. I’ll call Hardison and double check his availability.” Which Phil does, and Hardison assures him that he’s ready any time, his tone excited enough to amuse Phil. Phil tells him that they haven’t had breakfast yet, and Hardison encourages him to get a move on.

Clint is smiling a little when Phil ends the call. “I’m guessing he’s as gung ho about the testing as I am,” he says, and tips his cup back, draining the rest of his tea. “I could probably skip breakfast.”

“We’ve got plenty of time,” Phil says, dismissing the idea.

Clint makes a slightly disgruntled face, but says, “You’re the boss.”

They make their way to the cafeteria, and Clint, in spite of his offer to skip breakfast, wolfs down scrambled eggs, bacon and hashbrowns like he hasn’t eaten in days. He sticks with water instead of coffee, and Phil toys with the idea of lingering over his whole grain waffles, but can’t bring himself to actually do it when Clint is practically vibrating in his seat with anticipation.

Research and Development is just as noisy as it usually is, but Hardison is lurking just inside, and actually grabs Clint’s elbow as soon as they’re inside the door and begins propelling him at a rapid pace through the chaos so quickly that Phil has to hurry to keep up with them. He takes them into the corner again, but passes by the range Clint had used before and through a door marked DANGER: EXPLOSIVES IN USE. The noise abates almost entirely as the door closes behind them, and the room they’re in is still large, but nothing like the warehouse sized area of the rest of R&D. There are several steel doors radiating out from a central hub, all made of industrial grade steel, looking extremely sturdy.

Hardison leads them through the one furthest from the entrance and into a long, narrow room that is more like a hallway than a room. Clint’s new quiver is already sitting on a countertop near the door, shaped now a little more like an oval.

“The speciality arrows are still in the basic quiver,” Hardison starts in immediately. “I just added a larger compartment for standard arrows and molded the shape a little more. You’re broad enough to carry it off, and the design actually gives me more space for the speciality arrows.”

He physically turns Clint, inspecting the quiver he’s currently wearing, and then turns him back around to look at the modifications the Valkyries had made to the straps. “They sent me the specs for the mods, I think they should be right,” he says, and actually starts unbuckling Clint’s quiver himself before Clint bats his hands away and handles the straps himself.

Hardison shifts impatiently from foot to foot, but doesn’t actually object. Phil represses a smile. 

Clint hefts the new quiver experimentally, face intent, but nods a little, as though it were about as he expected, or at least falls into a range he’s comfortable with. He straps it to his back -- Hardison’s hands hover in the air as though he’s either itching to help or worried that Clint will drop the thing -- then shrugs his shoulders, turning his head first one way, then the other, then tipping his head back on his neck.

“Okay, yeah,” Clint says. “This will do.”

“It holds 40 speciality arrows and sixty broadheads, if you want to maximize your speciality arrows,” Hardison tells him. “If you want more standard ammo and less speciality, you can take however many specialty arrows you want and fill the rest of that section with standard arrows. It shouldn’t affect the equipment or your draw.”

Clint nods to show he’s listening, but he’s pulling his bow off of his back as though it were a sword coming out of a sheath and then snapping his wrist forward in an easy, confident gesture that Phil suspects means he’s already perfectly comfortable with the new design.

Clint’s fingers ghost along the buttons built into the bow’s grip. “You’re going to have to give me a tutorial on these things.”

“Just the basics for now,” Hardison says. “Once you’re carrying multiple types of arrows with different purposes, the button combinations will be important, but right now you’re only loaded with the explosive heads. Now because each shaft has to fit itself into each head securely, it’s going to slow you down. The machinery is fast, but it’s not as fast as I’ve seen you draw. If I were you. I’d have one slotted and ready to go at all times, just waiting for you to need it.” Clint nods, frowning slightly. “Okay, so the combo for explosive heads is third button once, top button twice.”

Clint’s fingers dance along the buttons, and Phil can just barely hear the mechanism as it slots the shaft of an arrow into the explosive head. It takes barely a second, and then the feathered tip of the readied arrow rises up about an inch above the rest of the visible fletchings. Clint reaches back, feels it there, and nods.

Hardison makes a hurry up gesture and Clint steps to the middle of the long, narrow room, head cocked a little as he sees the target at the end of the range. It’s a mannequin of some sort, naked and human-shaped without actually looking very human.

“What is it made of?” Clint asks.

“A skin-density polymer filled with sand,” Hardison says. “So it will actually be a little denser than any real person you might be shooting with it. Not that I’m anticipating you shooting these things at people. More often than not, you’re going to be shooting at things, cars, buildings, something you need to put a serious hole in. But we’re target shooting here, and I don’t really want you blowing a hole through the building, so it’s what we got.”

Hardison makes another one of those aborted hurrying gestures.

Clint throws a sideways smile at him, but reaches back and snags the specialty arrow. Even as he’s doing that with his left hand, he’s pushing the combo for another specialty arrow with his right, already the movement looking smooth, and Phil thinks he’s just getting in what practice he can while the situation allows for it. “I hope you have more than one,” Clint says, and balances the arrow for a moment across a flat palm. Then he nocks it and draws, all a little more slowly than he had in his previous demonstration, but not much more slowly.

“I almost forgot,” Hardison says, and walks around behind Clint to a small, flat bag sitting on the counter. He zips it open and comes out with a pair of sights. Clint lets the arrow loosen in the string, holding it and the bow both in one hand, and takes one of the scopes in his right studying it. After a moment he trades the first sight for the other and studies it in turn.

“They look good,” Clint says, sounding a little surprised.

“I told you, I based them on your design. The big differences is that they both have settings for low light and infrared.” He shows Clint a pair of divots along the shafts of the sights. “They’re made like the bow, a fingerprint reader, so no one can flip them on you, and the chances of you flipping them on yourself are slim. Want to try one?”

“Are they more or less the same?” Clint asks.

“One is slightly dumbed down,” Hardison admits. “I used it for testing, and we didn’t have anyone as qualified as you to test it on. So it’s got better range and standard cross-hairs. The other one is more true to your original designs.”

Clint nods. “Give me that one,” he says, and patiently watches Hardison attach the sight to the bow, his eyes intent on the motions. “Not that I need it at this distance, but I’ll be able to tell if I need something different or better.”

He raises the bow, arrow once again firmly nocked, and peers through the sight. “Looks good. Lots of range of vision. I can hardly tell the difference between this and one of my own.” He sounds almost grudging, but Hardison looks pleased.

“Okay, let me get the camera ready,” Hardison says, and pulls out the same camera from yesterday, all lens and protruding wires and unsightly bulges. “I’m going to want real film on this one, too, so just…” Hardison’s fingers fiddle with the camera for a few seconds, and then he raises it to his eyes. “This is three hundred and fifty yards,” he tells Clint. “We can move the target up if you need it, but after yesterday I went ahead and set it as far back as it would go without endangering the wall, which I went ahead and reinforced, just in case.”

“You won’t need to move it up,” Clint says, and draws the arrow back, eye on the sight, arrow resting across the top of his fingers. “The weight is well balanced around the head. I’ve shot heavier arrows before. Nothing like this, but arrows with denser heads and armor piercing arrows. This isn’t much heavier. Do I have to do anything to prime it to explode?”

“No, it’ll explode on impact,” Hardison says.

“I might like to have some I can put on timers,” Clint says, but doesn’t pause to wait for a response to that. He pulls, his back again that elegant line that makes his body look as though his shoulders are resting against an invisible barrier, and lets fly.

The arrow whines a little through the air, but the sound lasts barely a second. It hits the mannequin they’re using as a target and the sound is a massive, concussive BOOM. Mannequin arms and legs fly, bouncing off the ranges sides and back and sand explodes out of it like a fountain, peppering walls, ceiling and floor. There is nothing but a smoking, charred spot on the floor where the target had stood, and Clint’s grin is so broad it looks a little painful.

Hardison’s expression is euphoric, even as his fingers work to rewind the video, and they all huddle around the screen Hardison plugs the camera into. The familiar lines of math, formulas and parabolas, unwind across the screen, which Hardison studies, muttering under his breath, and then he taps a few buttons on the screen and the picture comes up, Clint’s back visible in the shot, and Hardison taps a few more buttons and slows the image down so they can watch the arrow arc up and fly, striking the mannequin dead center, and the explosion in slow motion is almost more impressive than it had been in reality.

“Beautiful, man,” Hardison says, sounding wildly delighted. “I knew this wouldn’t do it, not after the show you already put on, so I’ve got you booked at an outside range.” He glances back at Coulson. “It’s not far, and I cleared it with Fury.” Then he looks at Clint. “If you’re willing. There’ll be kind of a crowd. I had a few people tell me you’d promised them a viewing if it came up, and I’ve got a few more that I want to have watch this, for when we build your backup and any future models.”

Clint’s face splits into an even broader grin. “What am I shooting at?” he asks.

“Most of it will just be the scenery,” he says, though he’s still looking at Phil for permission. “Two hours, man,” Hardison says. “And there’s no other way to see what he can really do.”

“And Fury cleared it?” Phil asks.

“Fury wants it all on film,” Hardison says. “I think if he weren’t stuck in the middle of things, he’d have made it his business to see it all first hand.”

“This the quarry?” Phil asks.

“Yeah,” Hardison says, grinning. 

Phil looks at Clint’s face and silently relents. Not that he had been very invested in arguing. “We’ll take Lola,” he says. “We can meet you there in an hour.”

Hardison beams. “I’ve got a truck already loaded and everyone on call,” he says. “Hill is coming. She said she missed his rifle practice yesterday and doesn’t intend to miss this.” Hardison gets on his phone, and says, “It’s yay, get everyone together and headed that way. Yes, I promised, didn’t I? You can drive. Meet me in the garage.” He snaps the phone closed.

Ten minutes later, Phil walks himself to the passenger door of Lola and ignores Clint’s wide-eyed look with amusement. “Don’t wreck my car, or you will live to regret it, Barton,” Phil says, and tosses the keys across the roof to Clint. Clint removes the quiver and bow and tucks them into the back seat. He’s beaming as he takes a seat behind the wheel.

Phil feels that warm pressure behind the breastbone and realizes that he’d do almost anything for that smile on Clint’s face. He isn’t willing to delve deeper into the emotion just yet. He isn’t willing to chance it being a one way street, doesn’t want to know until he is more sure of Clint, but it’s there.

Clint pulls smoothly out of the garage, following Phil’s concise directions. There is a small army of SUV’s pulling out behind them, but Clint ignores them.

“How fast will she go?” he wants to know.

“Faster than the rest of them by light years,” Phil says smugly. Then, “Go ahead and let her out, once we get off the surface streets. She’s a high test machine; she wasn’t meant for things like speed limits.”

Clint flashes him a blinding grin, and merges into traffic. He is good behind the wheel, maybe not as good as Phil, but Phil has been driving Lola for twenty years. He weaves in and out of traffic like it’s barely moving around him, and when Phil directs him off the main road and onto a curved two-lane stretch of blacktop that will take them almost all the way to the quarry, Clint really puts his foot down.

There are a few cars on the road, but not many, and Clint’s reflexes are superlative. He passes them and leaves them behind, along with the rest of the caravan that are all headed to the same place, and buries the needle at one-forty, taking the curves and swerves with perfect confidence and such obvious pleasure that Phil is glad he’d made the offer. He can sometimes be a bad passenger, but Clint is so obviously in control of every centimeter of the car that he is mostly relaxed, just enjoying the ride and enjoying Clint’s joy.

“Slow down,” he says eventually. “Turn off is about a mile up.”

They’re on the outskirts of the northern section of the city, which this stretch of road runs more parallel to than through, and Clint sighs a little, but slows down to a more sedate seventy miles an hour. 

“The road is gravel, you’ll want to take it a little slower,” Phil says, almost gently, but Clint is still smiling as he slows further, and he makes the left turn onto the road with a plume of dust rising in his wake, but without fishtailing the rear wheels at all. Still, he stays at a more sedate fifty on this road, hands loose and easy on the wheel, and slows more when he sees the fence with the signs start showing up along the right side of the road.

They’re just basic issue military institution signs, trespassing forbidden, and warning of an electrified fence surrounding the property, but Clint isn’t stupid. 

“Gate in another thousand yards or so,” Phil says, and Clint slows further. Very far back in the rearview, the dust cloud indicating the rest of their party plumes onto the access road, but it will be at least fifteen minutes until they catch up.

Clint downshifts and turns smoothly into the drive, stopping at the security station, hand gripping the wheel for a long moment, and then stroking it almost absently. “This is the best car I’ve ever driven,” he says, as the guard in the security station steps out and asks for I.D. Phil already has his in hand and passes it over. Clint digs in his pants and comes up with his own shiny new badge and hands it over as well. The guard makes careful notes on a tablet computer, studies the two of them and their I.D.’s and then passes them back.

“Agent Coulson,” he says. “Good to see you again.”

Phil leans down to take in the guard’s face and isn’t terribly surprised to recognize him. “Ash,” he says. “What the hell are you doing on this detail?”

Ash flashes him a smile. “Strictly makework, sir. My handler busted his collarbone on our last mission. He’ll be laid up another couple of weeks.”

“Things still good with Jollette?” Phil asks. Rick Ash had been the third specialist Phil had handled, years ago now. 

Ash’s grin broadens. “No complaints,” he says, looking pleased. “Aside from the broken collarbone, obviously. But yeah. We match up. It’s… pretty damned good.” He actually flushes a little.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Phil says, and genuinely is. “I’ll make sure to send Jollette some flowers or something.”

“Balloons,” Ash says, grinning. “I’m trying to get everyone to send him Disney balloons. His hospital room looks like it might start floating away like in that ‘Up’ film.”

Phil smirks. “I’m on it. Ash, this is Clint Barton, my new specialist.”

“Heard about him,” Ash says, ducking his head a little to look at Clint. “Phil’s a hard case, but if you can make it with him, you can make it with anyone,” he tells Clint.

“I’m planning on sticking with him,” Clint says easily.

Ash’s brows arch slightly, and he throws a glance past Clint to Phil. Phil gives a shallow nod.

“I’ll be damned,” he says. “Jollete owes me a quarter of a million bucks.” He grins, though he doesn’t say what for. Phil can guess.

Jollette and Ash have been together for more than a decade, so he doubts the money means anything between them, and Phil smirks a little. “Make sure you hit him up for it while he’s still on pain meds.”

Ash laughs. “I’ll do that,” he says. “Y’all are free to go on through, obviously.”

“We’re working with explosives,” Phil tells Ash. “So don’t panic if you start hearing the blasts.”

“I got the general orders, so I’m not worried,” Ash says, and doesn’t ask for specifics. He leans into the security booth and thumbs a button and the gate trundles open for them. “Have fun blowing shit up,” he says, still with that easy grin, and Clint eases the car through the gate and onto the hard packed dirt of the road beyond.

“Follow the road around until you see the training center. We’ll park there and go on foot the rest of the way.”

Clint keeps the car to a relatively slow pace on the curvy roads, face a little introspective. “So he was… one of yours?” he asks finally. He doesn’t sound nervous exactly; more uncertain as to whether he is allowed to ask.

“For about a year,” Phil says. “He came out of the Marines with some fairly serious PTSD. I don’t know all the details, but my guess is that he had trouble being a submissive in his unit. It took a while, between Psych and me, to get him comfortable with his dynamic. He’s a switch, which is hard enough to handle without having been… abused. He’s one of the ones I worked really well with, once we got him settled. His partner, Jollete, is a switch, too. They’re one of a few pairs like that, but it works well for them. He used to give amazing back rubs.”

Clint glances over at Phil. “I could learn to give amazing back rubs.”

Phil smiles. “I know. We’ll work on it, if you find out it’s something you like to do.”

Clint’s lips quirk. “Hrm, getting to touch you all over. Sounds like a real hardship, sir.”

Phil smirks a little. “Park in the back,” he instructs, and Clint pulls around the low, long building without further comment, parking Lola off to one side without having to be told that Phil doesn’t like to park her too close to other vehicles. There are only a few other cars in the dirt lot, mostly dark SUV’s with a couple of ATV’s thrown in for flavor.

Phil gets out, and Clint strokes Lola’s steering wheel one more time and then turns the engine off, tossing the keys back to Phil without asking. Phil pockets them and waits for Clint to get his bow and quiver settled onto his back again.

“Do we wait, or what?” Clint asks. “For the rest of them, I mean?”

Phil shakes his head. “They’ll find us, and it might be useful to you to get a feel for what you’re shooting at. You might even need time to set up, depending on what you want to do, or what Hardison wants to see.”

Clint nods and follows Phil up a narrow, weed-choked patch that stretches along the outer rim of the deep depression that is what’s left of the quarry that used to be here. They begin a slow, careful descent, but SHIELD uses this place a lot, and there are stairs and railings cut into the path, so it’s steep, but there’s really no danger.

“How big do you want your rocks to be?” Phil asks about midway down, where the trail splits.

Clint considers. “The bigger the better,” he says. “I want a good feel for what this thing can do.”

Phil takes the path that veers slightly to the left, and Clint follows. “The other path leads to some open pit areas where they come to test newly developed ordinance,” Phil tells him. “There are some interesting pits, and some interesting rock faces as a result, but when they’re not blowing things up there, most of the agents that use that side are working on climbing and rappelling. You’ll get more intact chunks of rocks this way, unless something has changed since last time I’ve been out here. Which it could have. It’s been at least a year.”

“What were you doing out here last?” Clint asks, traversing the narrow path with easy, sure-footed grace.

“I was giving some junior agents lessons on how to avoid getting shot while rappelling into hostile territory.” He smiles. “Rubber bullets still sting like a bitch.”

Clint laughs.

As they reach the bottom of the cut steps, they hear a ruckus from up above and both turn to look.

“If you start without me, I’m going to be so pissed off,” Hardison shouts down at them. He’s changed into what looks a lot like swat gear, which makes sense if he’d known he’d be crawling around in the rocks. He’s got a whole crowd of people with him, and Clint idly pulls his bow and gazes up at them through the scope. “Huh,” he says. “He’s got Spencer and Kennet and Hill, and for some reason, Maxwell. A couple of the specialists. Some other people I don’t know at all.”

“Probably R&D people,” Phil says. “The people that actually worked on your bow and the arrows, or that will be working on them in the future.”

“Don’t point that damned thing at me,” Hardison shouts, and Clint grins, but lowers his bow.

“Just checking the lay of the land,” he shouts back, and Hardison makes an impatient gesture, and the group of people with him start down the trail.

“Over here,” Phil says, gesturing toward some piles of rocks, some of them loose, already reduced to rubble, some of them standing upright, a few shaped into narrow tops by the wind, but a few with bulges and protrusions. Clint is measuring things with his gaze, probably already picking out targets and thinking about trajectories and taking into account the wind, which isn’t blowing hard down here in the bowl of the quarry, but is still blowing enough to be a consideration.

This side of the depression is full of these towers of rocks. There are blast marks, old and partially eradicated by wind or rain, where presumably other people have come over here to test their munitions, but for the most part there are dozens of standing pillars of stones. Phil leads Clint a little, wandering way through them, and stops in front of a solid rock wall, a little pitted with dust, but clearly dense and stable.

“We’ll have to keep them all back behind some kind of marker,” Clint says. “And I hope they brought protective eyewear, at least, because I don’t have a clear idea of how hard these beauties are going to blow.”

“If we keep them all against the trail wall, you should be able to target anything you want on this side without worrying about too much shrapnel. The wind is coming from the west, so even most of the dust will be blown back.” He looks at Clint. “How sure of your aim are you, with just one shot?” he asks.

“Assuming they all are weighted exactly the same as the arrow I fired, I’m completely confident in my aim,” Clint says smugly. “What I’m not sure of is the destructive force of the concussion when it’s not contained the way it was in the range.”

Phil nods. “What about your range? How far can you shoot with those things?”

“Part of this is to find out,” Clint says thoughtfully. “Further than the depth of the range Hardison had set up, but I’m not sure how much further. An ounce and a half really does make a difference when it’s all balanced at the tip of the arrow.”

“Of course,” Phil says. “But we’ll start with targets further out, just to make sure the concussive force isn’t going to cause a rockslide or anything,” he says. “It shouldn’t. This place is sturdy; that’s why we use it. But it doesn’t hurt to be safe.” He gestures toward the ground, at some of the boulders and large rocks littering the surface. “You want to set these up on top of some of the columns?”

Clint thinks about it. “They’re mostly big enough not to require a lot of aim,” he says. “But we’ve got time, and it’ll give me something to do.”

The two of them spend the twenty minutes the rest of the group spends making their way down the trail setting up a makeshift shooting gallery that is mostly unnecessary, but which Phil can tell Clint thinks might be fun anyway.

Clint’s worries about protective gear are rendered moot almost at once. Everyone is wearing eye coverings and carrying hard hats under an arm.

Hill makes it down first, jumping the last ten feet to land in a graceful crouch. “I’m under strict orders to be back on the base in less than three hours with the two of you in tow, so don’t dawdle, Barton,” she says, and then smiles. “I’m looking forward to this.” 

She seems completely sincere, and Clint says, “I hadn’t really been intending to show off -- I honestly just want an idea of what the specialty weapons can do -- but I guess I can make it at least a little bit of a show.”

Hardison and Maxwell walk up to join them, Kennet and Capiro close behind (Capiro grins at Clint and offers him a two fingered salute), and Hardison immediately begins setting up a series of tripods and cameras. He hands Clint a small aerosol can and says, “Mark your targets.”

Clint hesitates. “Anything I want?” he asks.

Hardison nods almost absently, unwinding coils of wire and running them between the cameras.

“Maxwell, give me a hand,” Clint says, and Maxwell looks surprised, but follows Clint to a few of the higher plinths of stone and gives him ten fingers so Clint can spray paint a small lime green splotch on some of the higher rocks he’d been eyeing. 

“That far?” Hardison asks, not exactly dubious as much as with muted excitement.

“Yeah. Further I think. I’ll work on the back wall last, just to see how big a hole I can blow in it, but there’s no point to marking it up. I just want to know what kind of power these things really have, so aim doesn’t matter as much,” Clint says.

He’s trying to remain impassive in the face of all the strangers Hardison had brought along, Phil thinks, but he’s not quite managing it. His hand is flexing on his bow, and he’s smiling a little like he doesn’t even know the expression is on his face, a low-key expression that still registers as delight to Phil, though Phil thinks he may be the only one that knows Clint well enough to read him that clearly. Otherwise, he seems relaxed and at ease and very much in his element. He even shows every appearance of waiting patiently while Hardison and a few of his entourage get the equipment set up.

It isn’t until Hardison says, “Okay, I’ve got everything you’ve got marked in shot. I shouldn’t have to change any angles unless you are thinking about anything higher.

Clint looks like he’s thinking about that. “I’ll warn you if I’m going to move anything higher,” he finally says. “Do you want me in your shots, or behind your cameras out of the way?”

“Some of both,” Hardison says. “Why don’t we start with you behind the cameras.”

Clint nods easily and circles the cameras, stepping absently over coils of wire and flicks his wrist to extend the arms of his bow.

He draws the readied arrow, his fingers moving on the buttons even as he does it to ready another, and sights down the length of it.

People hurry to put their hard hats on, which makes Clint’s lips twitch for some reason, and then he pulls and lets fly. A plinth of rock nearly thirty feet high and about four hundred yards away explodes, the arrow hitting about halfway up the height of it, and rocks fly. The boom of the explosion is huge and echoing, and the grating fall of rocks blowing apart and ricocheting off other rocks is amazingly loud and echoes for a good twenty seconds after the initial shot.

Clint looks at the jagged remains of the stump of stone and lets out a whoop of pleasure, pumping a fist in the air. He’s still laughing when he throws a glance in Hardison’s direction. “Remind me I owe you a fruit basket or something,” he says, and Hardison grins.

“Holy hell,” one of the men Phil doesn’t recognize says reverently. 

Phil, apparently the only one truly prepared for this display of Clint’s skill, says nothing, but his cock twitches a little in his pants. It’s not the destruction that does it, and it’s not even Clint’s clear pleasure. Phil just has a thing for competence, and Clint is nothing if not competent, apparently with any weapon he puts his hands on.

Clint repeats this basic shot a few times, cackling with every explosion, mostly so Hardison can get it on camera, Phil guesses, because he can tell by Clint’s easy grip on the bow and his body language that Clint is already sure of the weapon. 

He takes the targets they’d set up next, harder, smaller targets, and this time when rocks fly, Clint’s arm blurs into a series of draws that Phil can’t quite track fast enough to follow, and Clint snipes chunks of rock out of the air with the broadhead arrows, sending them flipping out in a wide circle of debris and destruction. 

Clint takes a few minutes to recover some of the arrows -- some of them he picks up, examines, and then discards again -- and then comes back to stand near Hardison’s cameras. 

He fires the first shot into the back wall, aiming only desultorily, and the hole it blows in the wall is at least the size of a man, spraying chunks of rock far enough away from the impact sight that Clint actually sprays regular arrows into the debris to knock larger sized pieces away from the stunned crowd of onlookers and to protect one of Hardison’s cameras.

“Holy shit, Hardison,” Clint crows jubilantly. “You didn’t tell me you’d loaded them up heavy enough that I could vaporize a fucking bear with them if I wanted!”

“I told you hand grenade,” Hardison objects, but even he sounds a little shaken, like he hadn’t appreciated the sheer destructive force involved.

Clint takes two more shots at the back wall, mostly, Phil suspects, just to make sure that the first wasn’t a fluke. The onlookers have shrunk far back against the other wall, though some of Clint’s arrows still knock exploding rock back away from their general vicinity, and Phil is sure that this is what most of them will remember the most clearly.

Clint’s aim, yes, his utter confidence with his weapon, yes, but mostly they’ll remember that when Clint had blown up something that had flung loose rock in their direction, Clint had been so fast and so precise that he’d used regular arrows to deflect those chunks of flying debris, leaving the small crowd standing in a half-circle of safety.

And it’s the way he does it, almost negligently, as though he has plenty of time to judge the trajectory of each piece of flying debris, decide it might be a danger, and knock it out of the air all in the space of the half-second it takes him to draw an arrow.

He remembers telling Clint that the rumor was he was perfect with a rifle and supernatural with a bow, but even with all that he’s seen Clint do, it isn’t until this moment that it hits home for him how good Clint is. Even with the footage of the specialist’s range, this almost absentminded display of Clint easily and without any kind of hesitation keeping chunks of flying rock from explosions from blowing back at any of them is the thing that really gives everything else a frame of reference.

Supernatural seems like as good a word for it as any. Phil would not have believed it possible, is betting those present will not be believed if they decide to relay the tale to others. Phil isn’t sure how he’s going to manage to write a report on it that sounds even remotely realistic.

And the small crowd of onlookers all have expressions on their faces that indicate that they know how impossible it all looks. Even Hill looks faintly dazed, and Hill is the most pragmatic person Phil knows. She’s the type to believe what her eyes are telling her, but even still.

Clint makes it look effortless.

When Clint snaps the bow closed and slides it into the holster on his back, the group lets out a collective little sigh. Short of Clint putting together another one of these demonstrations, Phil is willing to bet they all know they’re never going to see anything like it again. Phil, who could probably talk Clint into showing off for him any time he wants, feels that same little swell of disappointment.

Clint is grinning broadly as he turns back toward them, humming something softly and tunelessly, his shoulders a loose, relaxed line that verges on what he looks like after orgasm. He claps Hardison on the shoulder hard enough to make Hardison reel a little. “Best welcome to SHIELD present ever,” he announces, grinning.

Hardison, grinning back, says, “Wait until I get you set up with the rest of what I’ve got in mind before you say that.”

Clint turns to Phil, grin still broad and easy. “Did you fucking see that?” he asks, almost conversationally.

Phil laughs. “I saw. And you’re right. You’re unbelievably fast with that thing.”

Clint preens a little, smirking.

Hardison is panning the camera over the ground around them, clearly capturing the uneven circle of debris-free ground surrounding the crowd of onlookers.

“I have never seen anything like that,” Kennet says in tones of profound respect bordering on reverence. “I watched you do it, and I can still hardly believe it.”

Phil sympathizes. Seeing Clint with a sniper rifle had been a thing of beauty, but he’s already rethinking the ways in which Clint with a bow can be deployed. Hill’s expression has a distant, thoughtful quality that Phil is certain means she’s doing almost the same thing.

There are a few moments of silence in which everyone seems to be looking around and measuring the extent of the destruction Clint has managed to wreak, and then they surge forward a little, surrounding Clint in a half-circle, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back and generally just reiterating how amazing he is. Clint takes it all with good grace, still grinning, though his body language isn’t quite as relaxed as it had been. He says (repeatedly) that Hardison and R&D deserve most of the credit, and Phil is a little amazed to realize that Clint doesn’t get that he isn’t being congratulated on the explosions or the craters he’d left in the rock, not really. It’s the rest of it, those almost careless shots that had kept rock from raining down onto the crowd, and they aren’t even congratulating him for protecting them; they all had hardhats and eye gear. It’s that he had done it at all, that he’d even thought to do it, and that easy, hipshot grace with which he had done it. Phil thinks about telling him, and then decides that he’ll do it later, in private.

“Time to head back,” Phil says, breaking up the little group (Clint’s expression flickers briefly with relief, though his smile doesn’t falter) by taking Clint by the elbow and drawing him away.

“Let’s get these cameras broken down,” Hardison says, which breaks up the group even further as the R&D people move to help.

The steep trail is a bit more difficult going up, but Phil is in good shape and Clint is, obviously, in practically the best shape a person can be in and still be human, and they make good time. Phil leads Clint around to Lola’s trunk and pops it. Inside, in a newly fitted custom cut-out of foam, is a bundle of Clint’s standard broadhead arrows. Clint gives him a single, slow blink of surprise, and then smiles a little, almost bashfully, as he refills his quiver.

“You’ll still have to get the specialty stuff from R&D, since the heads have to be fitted into the quiver by hand, but once Hardison makes another quiver or two, we’ll keep a loaded one in here for backup,” Phil says. “I don’t really take Lola to danger zones as a rule, but you just never know.”

“Yeah,” Clint says, still with that small smile. “Okay.”


	15. Chapter 15

Clint doesn’t even think to ask to drive on the way back, and Phil doesn’t offer. As amped on triumphant adrenaline as he still is, it probably isn’t a good idea for him to be behind the wheel anyway. His bow and quiver are behind him in the backseat, but Clint’s hands still tingle with the feel of the weapon, and he feels another little rush of jubilation.

“That was so fucking cool,” he says, almost without meaning to speak at all, and glances at Phil, who is driving with his hands loose on the wheel, even at 110 miles an hour. Phil smiles.

“It was something, alright,” Phil says. “I’m still trying to figure out how to write a report on it without making it sound like fiction. Luckily, I can attach Hardison’s video coverage of it.” He glances at Clint for a second, then back at the road. “You were right about the bow,” he adds.

Clint quirks a brow curiously. “What about the bow?” he asks.

“When you told me that you could give me a nick the size of a papercut on my left ring finger with the bow. That it was all about precision and speed. That the guns were something you could do, but the bow is your… calling,” Phil says almost musingly. “I’ve never seen anyone better with a sniper rifle than you, Clint, but I’ve never even _imagined_ anything like what you can do with that bow.”

Clint feels his cheeks heat with pleasure, but doesn’t look away. “My calling, yeah,” he says slowly. “I guess. The bow is about perfection. If you aren’t perfect, perfectly in control, you can’t really master it.”

“Even seeing the footage of you going through the specialists’ range didn’t really show me what you did today,” Phil says. “It’s not the explosions that crowd is going to remember, you know?” He throws another quick glance at Clint. “It’s you knocking debris out of the air with the regular arrows so it didn’t rain down on their heads. Not just that you _could_ do it. But the way that it looked like you hardly had to think about it. That it was as simple as breathing for you.”

Clint thinks about that for a few seconds. It _had_ been as simple as breathing. “Does it change anything?” he asks, not really thinking it will, but kind of hoping anyway.

“Oh yes,” Phil says, as though the answer is obvious. “If we have a choice about putting you in play with the bow or the gun, the bow will always be our first choice.”

Clint jolts a little in surprise, and then feels his chest go tight with some kind of satisfaction that is almost contentment. He believes Phil. And it’s better than he’s ever had. Everything is better than he’s ever had. “Thank you,” he says, because he feels like he has to say something, and there doesn’t seem to be anything big enough to encompass the way he feels. 

“We’d be idiots not to,” Phil says quietly. “There will be times when range or conditions don’t allow it, but if we can put you into play with your best skill set, we always, always will, Clint. Our specialists are more than worth it.”

Clint isn’t sure how to respond to that. They drive in silence for a few minutes, the only sound Lola’s wheels on the pavement. Clint glances at his watch. It’s not quite noon.

“Hungry?” Phil asks.

Clint is, but he’s something more pressing as well. “What time does the specialist thing happen?” he asks.

“Three or so,” Phil says. “Plenty of time.”

Clint ponders how to ask for what he wants, shoving aside the mental hitch that wants to resist laying himself open that way. Things are different. Phil is different. The collar around Clint’s throat feels heavy with meaning, with the kind of surrender he has never before allowed himself, but… Phil is different. Things are different. 

He glances over at Phil, who is looking back at him, a slight furrow between his brows, expression gentle and concerned. Clint thinks about looking away, but then doesn’t. “I’m worked up,” he says carefully. “I could use… some bringing down.”

Phil’s face opens briefly in both surprise and pleasure, and then he turns back to face the road, lips faintly curved. The speedometer climbs from 110 to 140. “I can probably come up with something,” he says simply, and it’s as easy as that. Phil doesn’t ask questions or make Clint tell more than he knows how to say. 

Clint feels a rush of relief and anticipation and a cautious sense of… something. Something so foreign that he has to think about it for more than a minute before it comes to him.

Belonging. No. More than that. More fundamental than that.

He feels -- and it’s a struggle to even think it -- possessive about Phil, but that isn’t the scary part. Or it is, but it isn’t the part that his mind trips over. He feels _possessed_ by Phil, and the feeling of fear or panic or entrapment that he thinks that understanding should cause just… isn’t there. Instead he feels his body relax even as his cock -- half-hard since he’d started shooting -- firms up in his tight armored pants. It’s almost a little strange to feel it without the harness to keep him soft.

He’s been running from this his entire adult life, has spent years avoiding situations that might put him in a position of submission to anyone else, but he isn’t afraid. He isn’t afraid of Phil. He isn’t afraid that Phil will take advantage.

There is fear, a little. Fear of showing himself, fear of being understood. But it doesn’t feel important. Not compared to what Phil has already given him in the past, not compared to the way it feels to be under Phil’s power, because that feels safe. That has felt safe almost from the start. Some of it is just because that’s the way Clint is wired, he knows that, but not all of it, or even most of it. Most of it is trust. He trusts Phil.

It is a tiny, shattering revelation.

He tries to talk himself out of it, but he has answers to all of his own questions and objections. Many of them given to him by Phil, but most of them just demonstrated by Phil often enough that Clint feels like he can place his faith in them. He can’t imagine SHIELD without Phil, but perhaps more alarming, more damning than that, he can’t imagine going back out on his own without Phil. He can see the thread of his past clearly, can see what a scant and anemic existence he’d lead before SHIELD, before Phil, and it was true what he’d told Phil in his office.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Stockholm Syndrome. Clint wants it. It doesn’t matter that he’s still afraid; he’s not afraid enough for it to stop him.

Phil makes his way through New York traffic as though every car on the road will get out of his way if he wants it to be that way, and they mostly do.

He handles Clint the same way he handles Lola. Like a high-test machine, his hands loose and easy on the wheel even as his attention is focused like a laser on what he’s doing. Clint is tired of pretending he doesn’t need that kind of handling. He has been tired of it since the very beginning, but he had lived with it because he hadn’t known any better. Now, in the course of a week, he not only knows better, but has been handled by Phil in almost every way possible, and it’s so much better than he’s ever had it before.

It doesn’t matter how he got here. He’s here now, and he’d do almost anything to stay. He feels his secrets floating at the very top of his mind, and he’s aware that he probably won’t keep them very much longer. The idea of letting them go, laying himself bare, is scary, but the idea of confessing them to Phil has it’s own kind of comfort. He even knows that Clint could tell Phil, and Phil wouldn’t tell the rest of SHIELD. Clint won’t ask him to do that because it won’t matter to him; most of SHIELD already thinks it anyway, only Fury would have to be included in the secret, and that isn’t enough to scare Clint away.

Phil pulls into the underground parking garage at SHIELD with a brief squall of tires as he jerks Lola into one of the farthest spaces from the door. Clint follows him through security, this time having to use his collar to get him inside. They stride side by side through the corridors until they reach their quarters, and Phil uses his thumbprint on the reader to get them inside. Clint is already slipping the bow and quiver off his back, setting them down securely on the end of the couch, and they actually make it to the bedroom for a wonder, before their clothes start to come off. Phil takes the time to hang his suit, whereas Clint merely drapes his armor across the top of the bureau. 

“Where do you want me?” Clint asks, eager and not making any attempt to hide it.

“I’d like to use some of the equipment built into the bed,” Phil says, sounding relaxed, but looking a little watchful around the eyes.

“Works for me,” Clint says, and slides up onto the bed on his back, his cock already hard lying across his belly.

“Over on your front, then,” Phil says, and leans down to jerk up a long length of leather from where it had apparently been stashed under the bed someplace. “And up on your knees.” Clint flips over and watches Phil circle around the bed to retrieve another long strip of leather, which he then brings together at the small of Clint’s back. “Hands,” he says, and Clint’s belly turns over in a mixture of dread and excitement. He takes a minute to prop a couple of pillows up under his chest, just so that he isn’t resting face down on the bed, and then puts his hands together at the small of his back. These strips of leather have no cuffs attached to them at all, are just all long strands, and Phil climbs up onto the bed behind Clint and shifts his hands around so that they are clasping each other’s forearms. Then he winds the leather around his arms, pulling the leather straps tight, but not painfully so. “I want you to wear a gag,” Phil says. “Is that something you can do?”

The very careful way that Phil asks it means that he recognizes it might be a problem for Clint, and why. “What kind of gag?”

“Something wide enough to hold your jaws open so that you can bite down on it, and because I like the way it sounds to have a submissive shouting from behind a gag,” Phil says matter-of-factly. “Nothing cock shaped,” he adds after a moment.

Clint considers it for another few seconds, and then finally just says, “Yeah, all right. I’ll try it out.”

Phil digs for something in one of the boxes on top of the bureau until he finds what he’s looking for, and then shows it to Clint. It’s wedge-shaped, something clearly designed to block sound and to hold the mouth partly open, just like Phil had said. Clint looks at it for a few seconds, but it doesn’t seem in any way scary to him, so he opens his mouth and lets Phil slide the gag in between his teeth. Clint bites down on it at once. It presses his tongue down in his mouth, but otherwise he kind of likes the way it feels to have something to bite on. He feels Phil buckling it closed behind his head, and shakes his head a little when he’s done just to make sure it isn’t going to get loose. It doesn’t seem like there’s much chance of it.

“I’m going to use a spreader bar between your knees,” Phil tells him, which is something Clint wishes he’d mentioned before he’d put the gag in so that he could ask what a spreader bar is. It becomes clear pretty quickly, though. Phil buckles a set of leather cuffs above his knees, and attaches a length of metal bar between them that holds them spread wide apart. Phil presses gently at the backs of Clint’s thighs until Clint gets the idea that he wants Clint to move his knees up higher, and does so without complaint. It leaves him tipped forward, the knotted leather around his wrists and forearms biting a little into the skin, but he’s otherwise pretty comfortable. His cock is a low throb tangled up in his groin, and he actually lets out a little huff of relief when Coulson slides the lube applicator into him, which makes him shiver with what he knows is coming, but also shudder with anticipation and fear.

Then Coulson is behind him on the bed, lining his cock up with Clint’s hole, and Clint does everything in his power to go loose and easy for Phil, but it’s still enormously difficult and painful as Phil slowly eases the head of his cock into Clint’s ass. He hears himself shout behind the gag, and it does something unexpectedly hot to the low grind of desire in the pit of Clint’s belly, hearing himself muffled like that, unable to voice the full extent of his pain. When Phil presses forward again, Clint lets out another shout, both because Phil had pressed in hard, and because he can, because he can make as much noise as he wants, and it’s all softened and muffled behind the gag.

“You can scream as much as you want,” Phil says, like he knows what Clint is thinking, his voice low and sultry even as he draws back and adds lube, and then pushes forward again, hard enough that Clint’s hands fist in their bondage and his back bows. This time Clint does scream, and it’s something, does something for him, makes it easier, it seems like, to take Phil’s cock because he really _can_ scream if he wants to, if it will make it easier to take. Coulson rocks gently into him, just the few inches he’s managed to press in so far, and Clint hears himself groan behind the gag, which does something for him, too, something different, but still something good. Phil eases forward another couple of inches, and Clint shouts out his pain, and if Phil wasn’t so _wide_ it would all be so much easier, he’s long, too, but it’s the width and the way it makes Clint stretch to take him that really makes it hard.

Even so, his cock is hard hanging between his thighs, and he wishes Phil would reach around and take him in hand, but Phil doesn’t. This time, apparently, Phil wants the whole length of his cock buried in Clint’s body before he puts a hand on Clint, and tears escape Clint’s eyes and stream down his face at the excruciating pressure inside him, but it’s good, too, being made open for Phil’s cock is hard, but good, and he feels a little burst of triumph every time Phil makes it in another few inches. When Phil pulls back to add lube again, Clint groans a little with a combination of pain and disappointment, he doesn’t want any more lube, he wants the rest of Phil’s cock, no matter how unreasonable he knows it is to feel that way. He wants Phil inside him, and Phil surges forward this time harder than before, jerking a little scream out of Clint that is almost totally lost behind the gag, and Phil says, “Good, scream for me,” and presses in even harder, not pulling back any more to stroke into Clint where he’s already been pushed open by Phil’s cock, but driving forward deliberately and without stopping, and Clint does scream, screams until Phil bottoms out and just stops for a few seconds, letting Clint get himself back under some kind of control. He bites down on the gag between his teeth and tries to get his quiet tears to settle back, and then Phil is pulling out again and it feels almost as painful as it had been when he’d pushed in. Clint shouts out an objection that the gag renders meaningless, and then Phil is fucking him, slow and careful, but all the way, pulling back until the flare of the glans tugs at Clint’s hole and then pushing all the way back inside, filling Clint completely and jerking helpless sounding little cries out from behind the gag. 

Phil shifts, just a little, pressing Clint’s knees up with the spreader bar, and then suddenly Phil is grinding along his prostate with every stroke, and Clint’s cries change in tone and meaning, and he jerks back onto Phil’s cock and Phil lets him, has his hands on Clint’s hips but doesn’t try to stop him, and Clint maybe loses his mind for a few minutes, driving himself painfully back onto Phil’s cock, groaning behind the gag, and then pulling away to do it all over again. “God, Clint,” Phil says, voice thick. “Fuck yourself on my cock, take it however you want it,” and the words seem to shiver through Clint’s mind in a shower of relief and desperation, and he does what Phil says, fucks himself back onto Phil’s enormous cock, still screaming just a little as he bottoms out, and pulling back to feel the drag of it scraping along his prostate, groaning low in his throat at the feel of it. He can hear himself making quiet, begging sounds behind the gag, but can’t seem to stop himself, he wants Phil to touch him so much, and then Phil’s hands clamp down on his hips, stilling them, making Clint shout out a protest, and Phil’s thighs are bunching and trembling up against the backs of Clint’s thighs as he shoves himself into Clint hard, harder than he ever has, another half a dozen times, and then his rhythm staggers, and he’s groaning as his cock jerks in Clint’s ass. Clint whimpers softly, and Phil reaches around and takes ahold of Clint’s cock, and Clint comes in two hard strokes, moaning behind the gag and feeling his body twist and clench around the huge stretch of Phil’s cock. Phil groans again at the feel of Clint twisting around his cock, and then just goes still for several long moments, letting Clint get his breath back and relax a little in his bonds before he slowly, gently pulls out, but even as gentle as he’s being, Clint is whining in discomfort at the same time that he doesn’t want Phil to pull out at all, doesn’t want to be left gaping and empty. He whines, high and urgent, and Phil pauses halfway out, and then reaches up and unbuckles the gag from behind Clint’s head.

“Again,” Clint pants. Phil’s hands go hard and grasping on his hips for a moment.

Then he says, “If I fuck you again, you’ll be too sore to go and play with the specialists today.” But there is a low edge to Phil’s voice, something eager and possessive.

“Don’t care,” Clint pants. “Want you again while I’m still open like this, want it so that it’s almost easy, without all the work of getting me open. Please, Phil. Can you?”

“Just hearing you ask for it again makes it certain that I can. But Clint, you were pretty rough with yourself. Are you sure you can take what you’re asking for?” Phil sounds genuinely concerned, but that eagerness is still present at the very edges of his tone.

“I can take it,” Clint says. “I want it.”

There is a long moment when Phil is doing something behind Clint that is not fucking him, and Clint is so impatient that he’s thinking about trying to line himself up and take Phil himself, and then the lube applicator slides back into Clint, which Clint thinks is ridiculous, there has to be enough lube and come in his ass to make it work already, but he doesn’t argue with Phil because it will only postpone what he wants, and besides, Phil probably knows what he’s doing, and then finally, _finally_ , Phil is lining his cock up with Clint’s hole and pushing inside again, slow, but all the way in at once, all of that long, hot glide at one time, and Clint whines out a sound of both pleasure and pain, because he’s raw, still, and Phil must have known, and that’s why he’d added more lube, but it’s more pleasure than pain, but when he moves to pull himself forward so that he can shove himself back onto Phil’s cock, Phil’s hands lock tight around his hips.

“Let me have you,” Phil says, low and rough, and Clint settles in response to the tone, the order, settles where he was put, and then Phil is drawing out and then pushing back in harder, hard enough that Clint cries out when he bottoms out, but it’s as much a good sound as a bad one, a sound of desperation, and Phil pulls out again and this time shoves himself forward into Clint, and Clint feels himself go lax and loose, pleasure arcing down his spine to tangle between his hipbones, and his cry this time is almost purely one of pleasure. “Clint,” Phil says, his tone almost pleading.

“Use me, use me,” Clint says, “I can take it, please.”

Phil groans, and then he is jerking himself out of Clint and then shoving back inside, fucking Clint harder than he ever has before, and Clint is loose and easy, still tight around Phil’s cock, he thinks he will always be, but his body loose and easy, letting Phil use his body to get himself off, not trying to fight Phil’s hands drilling into his hipbones, not trying to move from where he has been put, but just taking it, and he hears Phil like an echo, murmuring, “Yeah, take it, take it, Clint, take it all,” and the words send heat racing to the pit of his belly. Clint hitches out little screams of pleasure every time Phil bottoms out, and groans every time his cock rakes across Clint’s prostate, and he could come right now, just with Phil’s cock in him, just with the feel of it taking him over and leaving his mind somewhere behind him, but he waits because he wants to feel Phil come inside him first, wants it again, the feel of Phil’s thick cock jerking inside his ass, and Phil rams into him again and again, saying his name with almost every stroke, and Clint feels when Phil’s thighs begin to bunch and shudder, and he tightens down as well as he can around the width of Phil’s cock. Phil shouts out a sound of surprise and need, and then he is grinding his hips against Clint’s ass, pressing into him as hard as he can, and his cock jerks in Clint’s ass, and Clint lets go and lets himself come, and Phil cries out at the feel of Clint clenching and writhing around his shaft and manages to push in further still even as Clint’s scream of pleasure is still echoing off of the walls.

Phil, panting, arches his longer body over Clint’s back and bites at the back of his neck, not soft, but hard, and Clint is surprised to hear himself moaning out sounds of encouragement as Phil’s teeth sink into his skin. Then Phil is licking the bite mark he’d left, and Clint is gasping harshly, trying to catch his breath. He can feel Phil breathing hard against the back of his neck, and he breathes out Phil’s name to replace the ‘thank you’ he doesn’t know how to give him, and Phil places careful, soft kisses down a line from Clint’s neck to the middle of his back.

When Phil pulls back, it’s as slow and as gentle as he can probably make it, but Clint still groans in pain, and at some kind of desolation at being made empty again, after having been made so full. Phil unbinds the leather from around Clint’s wrists, and Clint gets his arms underneath them -- they feel weak and unsteady -- and pushes himself upright. Phil’s hand catches him about halfway there and pushes him back down against the stack of pillows again, and then begins to work on the cuffs and spreader bar above his knees, which Clint had all but forgotten about. Phil merely drops the leather on either side of the bed, but he puts the spreader bar and cuffs on the floor beside the bed, leaning far over to do it. Then he pulls Clint upright only to push him down again on his side. Clint is so surprised that he makes no move to fight it, not that he would likely try to fight anything Phil tried to do to him right now, and Phil lies down facing him, stealing one of the pillows from under Clint for his head.

“Are you alright?” Phil asks, but he doesn’t sound worried, exactly. He sounds cautious, like he thinks he might say the wrong thing and spoil everything.

“Sore,” Clint says. “But otherwise good.” He stretches over onto his back for a moment to arch his back and stretch out his legs, but then he rolls back over onto his side to face Phil. He smiles a little. “Going to be feeling that for a couple of days,” he says ruefully.

Phil’s expression lightens a little, less of that caution there. “Was it worth it?” Phil asks.

“Right now, definitely yes. Ask me again tomorrow.” Clint grins when he says it, but he’s still blissed out of his mind on sex, or he would never have asked the question that comes out next. “Why are you worried?”

Phil considers the question for several long seconds, and then simply answers, “I’m not sure you meant to say some of the things you said to me. I’m concerned that you’ll think back and remember some of them, and be upset.”

Clint blinks at him blankly, trying to think back to see if he remembers saying anything that he hadn’t meant to say, but nothing comes to him. “I’m not worried about what I said,” he says, meaning it as a comfort, but Phil’s bow crumples a little at the words.

“I’m not sure you know you’re saying them, Clint,” he says finally. “I’m not sure you aren’t telling me things during sex that you might not want me to know.”

“I don’t understand,” Clint says, and Phil sighs.

“I know you don’t. And I could be wrong. You could be totally aware of everything you say to me during sex. It’s not important right now. Just tell me that if you find yourself saying things during sex that upset or confuse you, that you’ll come to me. That you won’t just…” He makes a flickering motion with one hand. “Disappear on me.”

Clint stares at him in silence for at least a minute, trying to sort out what he wants to say in his head without letting it get all jumbled on the way out of his mouth. “I won’t disappear on you, Phil,” he manages finally. “I want to stay here. I want to be in SHIELD. I want you to be my handler. I have things I need to tell you still, but I’m not ready to do that, yet. But I’m not going to realize I gave away more than I meant to while we were having sex and pull a vanishing act on you. I don’t want to do that.” He pauses. “But you think you already know what I have to tell you,” he finishes finally.

“I do,” Phil says. “But I’m willing to wait for you to tell me whatever it is until you’re ready to do that, Clint.”

“I may never be able to do it,” Clint says, voice a little unsteady now. “I may never be able to put myself in your hands that way.”

“You don’t ever have to,” Phil says seriously. “I already told you, you are already who I want.”


	16. Chapter 16

Clint closes his eyes, his brow furrowed, and Phil watches him silently as his brow slowly clears and he goes totally limp on his side of the bed. He should wake Clint, get him cleaned up or he’s going to be ungodly sticky, but he can’t bring himself to do it. After the conversation they’d just had, Clint closing his eyes and falling asleep within minutes seems like something like a miracle to Phil, and he’s not going to do anything but lay here and watch Clint sleep for a while. He’s not even going to get up and get his tablet and get some work done. He’s just going to watch Clint sleep, his face younger looking, but not by much. Just the fact that they could have that conversation and Clint could fall asleep almost directly afterward indicates a level of trust on Clint’s part that Phil can’t keep from circling around in his head.

That Clint suspects that Phil knows the secret that he keeps from everyone, and seems to be okay with that suspicion chases itself around in Phil’s head. And if Clint never tells him, Phil realizes, that’s okay with him. If Clint never tells him, it won’t be because he doesn’t trust Phil with that information. It’s because he won’t want it reported to Phil’s superiors, and moreover, Phil is willing to keep Clint’s secret. Assuming that he’s right, and that Clint really is a sub, and that is the thing that they had just been talking around, it doesn’t matter to Phil if Clint never admits it out loud. If it’s too hard for Clint to confess, then Phil will live without that confession.

After all, he gets to have everything else. He thinks of Clint’s voice, rough from screaming around the gag, insisting, “Again,” and he can’t see that there is anything missing in his relationship with Clint. Clint is what his life has made him, and even getting as much as Phil has gotten from him is already bordering on the improbable.

He doesn’t need Clint to say: “I’m a submissive,” to know that it’s true, and if Clint can’t say the words, that doesn’t make it any less true. And it’s not like Phil isn’t getting everything from Clint that he would get from him if he admitted that he is a submissive. Clint has been giving it to Phil almost from the first time, has been giving of himself during sex and outside of sex as well. Clint will never be sweet the way that some submissives are; he has seen too much, has been through too much. But he can be sweet, a little, and what he lacks in sweetness he more than makes up for in intensity.

Clint shifts in his sleep, rolling onto his other side and then pressing back into the curve of Phil’s body, settling there like he has always been there, which he has done since their very first night here.

There is nothing wrong with Clint’s submission other than the fact that he doesn’t admit to it openly. Phil _knows_ submissives with problems, he deals in submissives with problems, and Clint is not one of them.

Phil’s cell phone rings half an hour or so later, just at about the point that Phil thinks he might be able to drift off for a nap as well, and he reaches behind him and fumbles for it on the table. “Coulson,” he answers brusquely. Clint has risen up to one elbow and is looking a question at Phil, but it had been the range line, nothing to do with the op, so Phil just shakes his head.

“Agent Coulson, this is Kennet. I talked to you a couple of days ago about getting Agent Barton to test fire some prototype weapons for us.”

“I remember,” Phil says. 

“R&D says they’re ready whenever Barton is. They don’t have a range to shoot them at, which means closing this place down for top secret prototype weapon firing, but it’s a slow time of day right now, so I thought I’d give you a call and see if Barton might be up for it.”

“Do you want to go test fire top secret prototypes at the range?” Phil asks Clint, and has the pleasure of seeing his eyes light up with enthusiasm.

“Give us an hour to get cleaned up and we’ll be there,” Phil tells Kennet.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Kennet agrees and disconnects the call.

Clint rolls into a sitting position, winces, and then shifts to one hip to slide out of the bed. “What time is it?” Clint asks. “Should we eat?”

“It’s a little after three, and I’ll get something together while you’re in the shower. You’re going to need a lot longer to clean up than I am,” Phil says. 

Clint throws him a glare over his shoulder, but is already headed in the direction of the bathroom. Phil idly watches his ass until it disappears from sight, and then sighs and gets out of bed and slides on his underwear. He’s not putting anything else on until he gets a shower, but he is against cooking in the nude, so underwear, at the very least.

Phil is going to give a bonus to whomever stocked their fridge, he decides, as he slaps together a couple of gourmet quality sandwiches and then wolfs his down while he waits for Clint to get out of the shower. He adds Sunchips to Clint’s plate, not entirely sure a single sandwich, even a big one, is going to be enough to really fill him up, and leaves it sitting on the kitchen table while he brews Clint a cup of Indian Chai and himself a cup of plain rooibos.

As has become the apparent norm, Clint wanders into the kitchen naked, still toweling his hair dry, and begins munching on sunchips. “Belt?” he asks, and Phil can’t tell through the mouthful of chips if Clint is hopeful or indifferent.

“You’ll be sore,” Phil warns.

“I’m already sore,” Clint counters, grinning a little. “Besides, I think the lube will help with some of that.”

“I think you only want to wear the belt because I always end up sucking you off to get you soft enough to put you into it,” Phil says, though he does not think this, not really. Still, it’s good to tease Clint and see him grin even as his cheeks pinken. “Eat your sandwich first,” Phil says. “Then I’ll take a look at your hole and see if I think you can handle the belt.”

Clint nods agreeably and stands at the kitchen table naked to eat his sandwich. Phil watches, because he can’t keep his eyes off of Clint, naked or clothed, and passes him his cup of tea when it’s done steeping. 

Clint smiles, slow and pleased, this time, as he accepts the cup. His cheeks pinken even more, and Phil has to force himself to look away. The simplest things seem to give Clint immense pleasure, and it’s a pleasure to look at Clint while he’s experiencing one of those pleasures. 

Once Clint finishes eating, they go back into the bedroom and Phil directs Clint up onto the bed on his knees so that he can inspect his swollen, well-used hole. “No belt,” he decides finally. “Though I’ll lube you up a little if you think it will help with the soreness.”

“I can do that myself,” Clint says, and rolls off the bed onto the floor. He kisses Phil almost absently on the mouth, something he’s never done before and which actually makes Phil’s heart feel like it skips a beat in sheer surprise. “You go take a shower.” As Phil passes him, Clint slaps him on the ass. Phil pauses, turning to look at Clint, who is looking back innocently at him, as if ass slapping is something that either happens all the time between the two of them or as if it should be. Phil decides that maybe it should be, and turns back toward the bathroom without a word of reprimand.

Clint is fully dressed in the armor when Phil gets out of the shower, and is once again incongruously doing the dishes while wearing it. Phil thinks Clint thinks it must be his job to wash up, since Phil had taken care of the food preparation, but the fact that he’s doing it fully armed and armored still strikes Phil as funny. He bites his lip and gets clean underwear out of the bureau and slides back into his suit. He’s straightening his tie when Clint wanders in, drying his hands on a dish towel. 

“Do we have a place where we go to get food in HQ, or do we grocery shop like regular people?” Clint asks.

“Either. Both,” Phil says. “We have a fairly expansive commissary, which is open 24 hours a day, or we can grocery shop wherever we like if we prefer. Most people do some of each. Why?”

“Good beer,” Clint says. “And I ate the last three slices of whatever kind of cheese that you put on our sandwiches.”

Phil feels his lips quirk into a small smile. “The cheese was Havarti, and we can get it at the commissary. Good beer you’re going to have to go elsewhere for, if by ‘good beer’ you mean craft beers and microbrews.”

Clint nods and walks back out into the kitchen to drape the dish towel over the handle of the oven. Coulson redials Kennet to let him know they’re on their way so that he can start clearing out the range, and Clint wants to know what’s so top secret about these weapons that they have to have their test firing done securely.

Phil knows the answer to the question but can’t talk about it in the unsecured hallways as they make their way to the range. Clint sulks along beside him, scowling as though it’s Phil’s fault he hadn’t asked the question while they were secure in their rooms, but he cheers up considerably as Agent Kennet sees them come in, seals and locks the range entrances on both sides, and pulls out a pair of rifle cases.

“It’s the phase 2 weaponry,” Phil finally answers. “It’s what SHIELD managed to develop based off of Hydra’s designs recovered during World War Two. We don’t have access to the power source, whatever it was, that Hydra used to power those weapons, but we’ve been able to make some modifications and develop some weapons of our own. They aren’t as powerful as the originals, which, no, you will never get to fire, but we’re still hoping they can do some serious damage.” Phil pauses, and then just because he can’t quite keep himself from watching Clint’s face while he does it, says, “They’re laser guns.”

Clint’s mouth drops open gratifyingly, and Phil hears Kennet chuckling softly from behind the counter.

Clint spins toward the rifle cases on the counters, his hands quick and nimble on the latches, and he opens them both at once, just looking at them for a long time, taking in the appearances of the weapons before he puts his hands on them.

“Can you show me how to field strip one of these?” he asks, addressing either Kennet or Phil, apparently not caring which of them answers.

Kennet pulls the smaller of the two rifles out of its case and begins to strip it down to its component parts. He holds up the power cell in front of Clint’s face for a long moment, making sure that Clint gets a good look at it. “This is your ammunition, for lack of a better word. They can be recharged unless they’re drained completely, in which case they just become so much useless junk, so every time you turn in one of these weapons, you order it recharged, are you getting me?” Kennet says serious. “Right now only a dozen people even know these exist, and if one gets issued to you, Duke and I are both among the ones that know how to recharge the cell, so no matter which of us you turn the rifle into, order the cell recharged. Someday, if we can manage to make these in more numbers, it will be different, but right now, we have under fifty of each, so you won’t be issued one with the rest of the guns in your kit. You’ll have to check it out of here, and it has to be with Fury’s approval.”

“Why so few?” Clint asks, brow furrowed. “If you can make them and you can power them, why so few of them in existence?”

“Because they are dangerous as hell to put together,” Phil says. “They have to be hand crafted individually in R&D in the explosive safe rooms, and we don’t yet have that great a need for them. When Hydra’s power source, whatever it was, went missing, the remainder of their weaponry eventually stopped working as well. We have a dozen of them that still fire, and we use them mostly to take apart so that we can see how they’re put together. They had a fairly large collection of different pistols and rifles, and we only have the rifles left now, but we don’t have more than two of each kind. We’re trying to reverse engineer the best weapons we can from each of those types of weapons, and then maybe we’ll worry about producing them on a larger scale.”

“It isn’t fair to have me test these,” Clint says, and his hands, apparently on automatic, begin to reassemble the rifle Kennet had taken apart. He does it flawlessly on the first try, which doesn’t surprise Phil a bit. “What I can do with them doesn’t prove what your average SHIELD marksman could do with them.”

“That’s one of the reasons why we need you to do it,” Phil says. “So that we know what we really have, the purely mechanical aspects of the machine. We don’t know yet that these weapons will even fire, Clint. We’re not that far along yet. But we need to know how long their range is with our best shot, and we should be able to scale that back to what it would be with someone a little more average than you are.”

Clint picks up the rifle, turning it over and over in his hands, his eyes taking in every detail. “This orange button is the safety?” he asks, and Kennet nods.

“It glows when the safety is disengaged. Nothing very obvious if you’re shooting in the dark, but enough radiance for you to be able to tell that you don’t have the safety on. Clint depresses the safety, and the gun makes a low whining sound that slowly increases in pitch until it reaches something that isn’t escalating anymore. “And that is what we assume is primed for firing,” Kennet says.

The range doors open, and Clint turns and shields the gun with his body, but it’s just Fury and Hill, and they lock the range down again behind them.

“Did we miss anything?” Fury asks, and Clint turns when he hears his voice, obvious relief on his face, and keeps the gun carefully pointed away from every living target in the room.

“Okay, what have you got set up for me?” Clint asks Kennet, and Kennet comes out from around the counter and walks Clint by each of the ranges he has set up. He has everything from the type of human shaped but sand filled target that Hardison had had him use with the explosive arrows, to a small tank, this one a Bearcat, one of SHIELD’s own proprietary designs that makes the tank Clint had blown up his first night here look like it’s made out of tinfoil, and everything in between. But he starts Clint out with the standard target, the man shaped outline on paper.

“How far out do you want it?” Kennet asks.

“That’s really the question, isn’t it?” Clint asks musingly, and then lifts the gun to brace the butt against the hollow of his shoulder. “All the way out. We might as well start out as far as we can, and shorten the distance if it’s too far.”

Kennet sends the paper target all the way to the back of the range.

“This is a two point four mile range, Barton,” Hill says, and Clint turns and grins at her.

“Finally, someone who knows the actual depth of the range. I could kiss you, Deputy Director.” He’s smirking, but looks a little like he means it.

“Just Hill is fine,” Hill says, sounding a little bemused, and Phil is downright shocked. Hill never invites a subordinate to call her by her last name to her face. It just never happens. People talk about Hill using her last name, but they talk _to_ her by title.

“Clear a space back from me,” Clint says. “All the way back to the far wall. If this thing explodes in my hands, I don’t want to take you all with me.” His tone is a little grim, but in spite of that, there is an edge of excitement to it.

All of the onlookers, including Phil, move to the back wall of the range, which is another three hundred feet back from the target. It looks very small from this distance, and Phil’s belly is a tight ball of fear, but not too much fear, because he knows what R&D is capable of. But Clint is right. Never having been test fired, there is no real way to be sure the thing won’t explode in his hands.

“Ready?” Clint asks, and Kennet pulls a video camera from his pocket, fires it up, and gives Clint the okay to fire.

The machine lets out a coughing whine, and a pulse of green-blue light shoots from the end of it, and Phil has time to think, _Well, at least it didn’t blow up,_ when the pulse of light hits the target and blows past it, blasting a respectable sized crater in the steel reinforced back wall of the range.

“Yes!” Clint shouts, ecstatic and wild, and he moves directly onto the next target, the sand dummy, before he realizes that it would be pointless to shoot it since the target is so close. Kennet flips up the partition and hauls the sand dummy, chair and all, all the way back down to the end of the range, and then jogs back down the range to get behind Clint again with the camera. Clint takes a moment to aim, says absently, “This scope is off by three degrees, do you have tools?”

“Can you fix it later?” Fury asks. “Can you compensate for the margin of error?”

“Absolutely,” Clint says, and pulls the trigger again. The green-blue pulse of energy shrieks down the lane and impacts the sand dummy, not doing quite as much damage to it as Clint’s exploding arrowhead had, but that had been from a lot closer. It’s still enough to tear the head and chest of the sand dummy loose from it’s body, sending sand flying, and making Clint grin like it might break his face if he doesn’t get ahold of himself. “What next?”

“Aim, next,” Kennet tells him, and walks him down to the next lane where there is a baseball balanced on top of a post.

Clint’s teeth glint, and Phil can tell he already feels good about how this rifle fires, because he only aims for about point five seconds, and the baseball explodes into fragments that spray the back wall and sides of the range.

“This thing has no kick at all, and can’t weigh more than four pounds,” Clint says, turning back to talk to Phil, mostly, as the rest of them have moved up closer after the first shot hadn’t caused the rifle to blow up in Clint’s hands. “Half of it’s the wood of the stock, if you changed to a lightweight polymer, it would cut the weight of it in half. What else?”

Kennet leads him to the next lane, where a golf ball is sitting on a post, but it’s about halfway up the lane, and Kennet swings the partition back again and moves the target all the way to the back wall. “It’s just a waste of time for him to try anything closer,” Kennet says, and watches, just like the rest of them, as the golf ball shatters into fragments, and the pulse of the blast leaves another considerable crater in the back wall of the range.

“Armor piercing,” Kennet tells him, before Clint can ask him what next, and leads him down to the next lane, where the Bearcat is sitting all the way to the back of the wall. “I thought he’d need the big rifle for this one, so I set it all the way back,” Kennet explains. 

Clint takes a microsecond to aim and then sends another shrieking pulse of blue-green energy hurtling toward the Bearcat, and Clint’s shot doesn’t make it through the machine to the wall behind it, but it blows the whole front of the mini tank apart, sending chunks of armor plating shooting a couple of hundred feet into the air. It all comes down with an enormous racket, some of it clearly still red hot with molten metal around the edges where the blast had hit.

“I want this gun,” Clint says, and hugs it to his chest like an extremely deadly teddy bear.

“We’re not issuing this gun yet, Barton,” Fury says, and then pauses. “But I’ll have one put into your kit.” He turns to Kennet. “Make sure it’s that one, recharge the cell on it and make sure that specific gun makes it into Barton’s kit.”

“Yes, sir!” Kennet says, eyes wide with surprise. He moves to take the gun from Clint, who is still holding it to his chest and looks like he’s thinking of not giving it back. Phil prudently engages the safety, in case they have to wrestle the gun out of Clint’s hands, but Clint does eventually hand the gun over to the Quartermaster. 

“The sight’s off three degrees to the right,” Clint reminds him. “Can you handle fixing it, or should I do it?” Clint’s voice is ever so slightly greedy as he asks, and Phil has to bite at his bottom lip to keep his face bland.

Then Clint’s gaze lands on the second rifle, the larger of the two, and he reaches for it immediately, before someone can tell him not to, and had apparently picked up enough of how the machine breaks down from watching Kennet break down the smaller version. The cell on this one is bigger, but it otherwise looks like almost the same gun made larger. Clint frowns at it thoughtfully, and says, “It can’t be range. They had no idea what the range was going to be. Is it just power level?” He reassembles the rifle and walks down to one of the lanes with a plain paper target hanging halfway down the length of it. He pushes the button to send it all the way out to maximum distance, punches the orange safety button, and this time the low whine that the other rifle had given out while powering up is an almost keening sound, high enough in pitch to make Phil flinch a little.

Clint aims down the sight, and says, “Just because that one didn’t blow up doesn’t mean this one won’t,” and the rest of them back up against the far wall of the range again, Kennet with his camera still recording. Clint tenses slightly as he pulls the trigger on the big rifle, and this time the pulse it emits is red and intermittent. It tears the paper target in two at the first hit, but Clint rocks back on his heels and says, “Where are the rest of the controls for this thing? It can’t just have a spray and pray trigger.” But then he turns toward them, his face lit up in a grin, and says, “Of course it can, of course it motherfucking can, because it doesn’t kick at all. He moves back down to the lane with the still smoldering Bearcat in it, and pulls the trigger, dragging the barrel of the rifle in a short, neat line, which cuts the bearcat through on its horizontal axis. More shrapnel flies up into the air and rains down into the lane, and Clint lets out a whoop of pure joy. “A motherfucking laser machine gun,” he tells them, his grin broad and wild around the eyes. “Did Hardison do this? I’m going to kiss him right on the mouth,” Clint says.

“Hardison supervised the pair of reverse engineering specialists that actually made the guns, and I’ll make sure they know you want to kiss them right on the mouths,” Fury says, his tone snide, but his expression triumphant.

Clint throws his head back and laughs with delight, and Hill can’t seem to keep herself from chuckling along with him. Phil keeps his face calm, but only barely so, but even Fury is smiling just a little, just if you know how to look for it.

“We’re going to take back your gun, Barton, just long enough so that we know that every single other one we have is put together exactly like it, but I’ll have it back in your kit by the day after tomorrow. You need special dispensation to use that weapon, or even check it out of the cage, but it’s yours. The machine gun is not a sniper rifle, so you don’t get one issued to you, and again, now that we’re sure they work we want to go over every completed weapon and make sure they’re put together the exact same way, but I promise to put you in the front seat the first time we ever use the machine rifle on a mission.”

Clint grins at Fury fiercely, thumbs the safety into the on position on the bigger rifle, and stows it carefully back into it’s case.

“I don’t have to tell you this is classified information, do I?” Fury asks, giving Clint a baleful look.

“No, sir, I’m crystal clear on the classification,” Clint says, his voice still jubilant. “I’m just glad I got to be behind the machines when they were tested.”

“Yeah, well, someone told me you were the best sniper they’d ever seen,” Fury says, and looks at Phil and then at Kennet. “More than one somebodies. Kennet, pull Duke out of bed to help you get this place cleaned up so we can open it back up soonest. Patch those craters in rear walls with steel plates for right now. I doubt anyone will notice the difference, as far back as they are.”

“Yes, sir,” Kennet says, but he’s looking at the lane with the scattered bits of Bearcat in it ruefully.

Clint, following his gaze, says, “I could maybe help…” but Fury cuts him off.

“Cleanup is in no way your job, specialist. I’ll get people in here to help them clear the floor and fix the walls.”

“If they’re so classified, how are you going to explain this mess?” Clint asks.

“These are people that clean up classified messes. They won’t ask questions,” Fury says. “That said, keep it locked down until the mess is cleaned up,” Fury tells Kennet. “I don’t want any other shooters in here until the place looks mostly like it did before.”

“Yes, sir,” Kennet agrees, and slides his cell phone out of his pocket to dial Duke at the same time that Fury is sliding his phone out of his pocket to dial his classified clean up crew.”

“You’re getting a tag for that,” Hill says quietly. “Maybe more than one. At Coulson’s clearance level, you are pretty much the only one we could have put behind those guns. Phase 2 is clearance 10 need to know only, and even still, most of clearance 10 doesn’t know. Just a few people here and there that we’re sure of, and the techs working on reverse engineering the Hydra weapons. Hardison, of course. Fury, Coulson and I, and now you.”

She turns to look at Clint. “We should have intel by tomorrow morning, our operatives are going to try to slip away, but either way we’re going to extract,” she says. “Quietly, if possible, but if not we’ll make it look like a minor assault on an unknown facility. Be ready.”

“Stark came through with the satellites?” Phil asks.

“Like a champ,” Hill says. “We know where almost all of the bases are now. We’re getting people into position. Now we just need to wait for the intel.” She turns to Coulson. “Start picking out your specialists and whatever assets you think you’re going to need. We’re looking to cover more than forty bases. Forty-one, to be exact, from what we can be sure of. Call people in from the field if you need them.”

“Are we sending anyone in undercover?” Phil asks, and doesn’t let himself look at Clint as he does it. 

“Maybe, in two or three of the main bases. We need someone to get in first and find out how they work and how to shut them down and then relay it to everyone else who is in position. The best way to do that is likely to send someone in playing high ranking officer.”

“Maybe, depending on what our latest intel provides us with their roster, which we both know isn’t much, Maria. And anyone who goes in that way is going to have to at least know the basics of the machine, assuming Hydra has had them up and running for years now. Sending someone in like that with so little background information on the op is asking to take at least a few casualties.” Phil is looking at Clint thoughtfully. “If we can get a few of our people into the bigger facilities in a stealth capacity, those people can get eyes on the machine, whatever it is, and take the opportunity to blow it if the opportunity arises. We’d have to send everyone else in directly thereafter, but it could work.”

“You’re thinking Capiro,” Hill says, her brow furrowed in thought.

“He uses blades, so we know he can get in and out quietly, and he’s among the most tech savvy of all the specialists,” Phil says. “I’ll go in, if it looks like it’s going to run that way best, but I’m not sure it really is the best way to run this op.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Hill says, holding up both hands. “You’re too valuable to risk attempting to infiltrate a Hydra compound by trying to blend in, or play the ranking officer card. Especially with as little as we know about Hydra’s high ranking command staff, aside from their high command in Peru, as well as about how the subs are being controlled. If you don’t already look like you know what you’re doing when you’re faced with that machine or console, the gig will be up, and we can’t afford to lose you in such a stupid way.”

“I have an idea,” Clint says a little diffidently. “If we can get to the control mechanism through stealth measures, and assuming that it’s not too terribly complex, or that Capiro, if he’s going to be the first man on the ground, can walk me through it, we can incapacitate all the subs at once, send them all down. It’s not ideal, and they won’t thank us for it, but at least that way we know that anyone left standing is definitively not on our side.” Clint shrugs. “We have to assume that Hydra is going to throw them at us like cannon fodder anyway, and this way, we clear the field of any potential prisoners in one quick move. Plus it gives us a reason to go into the compounds to retrieve our male submissives, which gives us a reason to really put the hurt on Hydra if we can.”

Hill is looking at Clint, her brows arched. “We’d have to make sure we were definitely going for incapacitation and not death, but it’s actually not a bad idea,” she says slowly. “We can surround the place with medevacs to get them off the ground ASAP, and then we can be sure that the only ones left fighting are Hydra.”

“It all depends on what the control mechanism looks like, what it’s made _of_ ,” Clint says. “How likely is it to be something simple enough that if the Hydra personnel on the base thought that the subs were endangering them in some way, they could just turn a knob or trip a switch to get them out of the way.”

“Not as likely as you might think. It might be hooked up to a computer security system with a passcode, but if we can hack our way past one of those… It also renders whatever handheld units the guards might have on them useless,” Phil says. “Once the subs hit the ground, the handheld devices are no longer a practical tool for controlling them. It will let us take our main forces directly to the compounds and leave ground forces out to take out their ground forces.”

“I don’t like it,” Fury says. “It leaves the subs on the ground pretty much unable to defend themselves. But Barton may be right. We can send recovery teams in to start carting out anyone on the ground almost at once, and all we have to do in the meantime is protect their evac. We’ll get into the compounds if we can, to get the male submissives out, but things are going to be a lot more bloody that way.” He smiles a little grimly, but in a way that seems to indicate that he likes that part of the plan. “To recover our male submissives, we’re almost certainly going to have to actually enter the compounds and engage Hydra. Which isn’t the point of this exercise, but Barton is right, I know we’ll all feel a hell of a lot better if we can do some damage to them while we’re there.” He turns to Hill. “Start to get together evac teams, big teams with as little firepower as we can feasibly leave with them to keep them safe. Pick them out of the the field crews if you can. They’re used to being under fire and still doing their jobs, and in this case, their job isn’t even to treat the wounded. It’s just to get them off of the field. We’ll have a perimeter set up to get them behind, and real medics on hand to deal with any real problems, but then we can just send the evac teams out for more subs until we’re sure we’ve got all we’re going to be able to get. Ideally, I’d want to schedule this for ass o’clock in the morning, but that won’t work if they don’t sleep in their masks,” Fury says thoughtfully. “Let’s tentatively plan on a late evening time frame.” He frowns. “That’s more light than I like, but it will also be when they’re closing out the day, not expecting anything to happen.”

“It all depends on if we can tell the difference between knocking them out with the device and killing them all,” Clint says unhappily. “If it works, it could be almost a perfect plan, but not if we kill them all by accident. And they might not all look the same.”

“They almost certainly will,” Phil says, and slides a hand around the back of Clint’s neck, so that the tension goes almost entirely out of it and his hand is more or less supporting Clint’s head. “One thing you can count on Hydra for is predictability. They would have had the consoles all installed at once, and by the same group of people, and then would have killed those people to cover their tracks. They’ll all look the same or similar enough so that it won’t matter. My only real concern is that the terminals might have to be hacked. Capiro can talk specialists through it, if need be, but even then, I don’t think it will be a very serious job to hack them. Hydra has to be able to get to them quickly if they feel the need to take them all down or kill them all at once. So maybe a computer program, but not designed to be that complex.”

“Let’s take this to the war room,” Fury says, and turns to leave Kennet and Duke and the newly arrived team of clean up experts to handle the mess on the range.


	17. Chapter 17

Phil and Clint fall in behind Hill and Fury, and they are mostly silent as they wind their way back around to the war room, which has undergone a remarkable change since the last time Clint had seen it. There are actual satellite photos tacked to the wall next to the Hydra flags, some of them close enough to show individual people walking through them. The main buildings for most of the marked compounds have these satellite images, and the ones that don’t, Hill says, is because the canopy covering them is just too dense. Still, it’s a huge help, they can see outbuildings as well as the main compounds themselves, and Clint taps a long, low building that looks like a bunkhouse.

“The female subs,” Clint says, not quite a question. His eyes rove over the images and lets his gaze pick out those long, low houses in every satellite image that they can see clearly from. “Evac teams could head straight for their barracks and get the majority of the females out before any of the guards really realizes that they’re down.”

“We think so, but we don’t know so,” Hill says. “But a lot of these buildings are newer than the rest of the compounds surrounding them, so it’s a pretty good guess.” She shrugs. “We’ll know more in the morning when we get our assets out. They’ll be able to tell us more about how the space is arranged and utilized. But yeah, if I had to guess, I’d say that’s where the female submissives sleep. Whether Hydra is training them to fight… I just don’t know. It doesn’t go along with their world view, but I can’t imagine them keeping the women around just to keep them around. Stark has promised us moving satellite images when we go in for a strike on the compounds, though, and that isn’t nothing.” Her eyes are glittering. “Depending on how Capiro does on the ground, it might be the most important factor in making sure our strikes are timed up to hit together.”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Phil says. “But I wouldn’t want a margin of error greater than fifteen minutes from the first compound to the last coming under attack. We don’t dare give them time to warn anyone else that we’re coming. Which means all the subs or assets we send in have to be at least computer literate enough to hack a computerized system, if that’s what they have in place. It’s unlikely, but not impossible.” He looks at Clint. “You’re not a hacker, Clint,” he says, but gently. “We can’t count on you to be able to move around inside their systems, and if this is going to work, all the specialists and assets have to be in place and ready for Capiro to give out instructions at the same time.”

Clint turns away, his face bleak with understanding, but he doesn’t argue at all. “You have to send the best you’ve got, the most capable you’ve got in case they are computer setups. I get that.” His voice is almost calm, but he can’t hide the frustration and the disappointment lurking beneath the surface. Phil slides a hand around the back of his neck, and Clint leans back into the palm of his hand, the way he has every time Phil has done it, and Clint doesn’t even care that’s he’s doing it in front of Fury and Hill, who are both looking sympathetically at him. “It’s my own fault,” Clint says, trying for light, but not quite making it. “I’m the one that didn’t train myself to use computers the way they can be used most effectively. Boy am I going to be pissed if it’s just a big red dial, though,” he says, and laughs only a little bitterly.

“We’re still going to need people to get into the compounds and retrieve our male submissives,” Fury says, though that is way below Clint’s capabilities and everyone there knows it.

“We could use an archer in a perch,” Hill says thoughtfully. “Once the submissives go down, anyone upright is a target, and if they’ve got arrows sticking out of their throats, we don’t have to worry about medevac getting downed Hydra agents with the submissives.”

“I appreciate the thought, but there is only one of me and forty-one bases to cover, what good does that really do us? But the medevacs can tell the difference from a downed sub and a downed Hydra goon by the fact that the subs are locked into their masks,” Clint says, still only a little bitterly. “Or that’s what our intel is most likely to tell us, once they get back.”

“Son,” Fury says, his voice queerly gentle -- and Phil jerks a little at hearing Fury call _anyone_ “son” -- “if your idea to hack the system and take all the subs down at once works, you’ll have created a situation in which every person still on their feet is a definite hostile target. If you hadn’t been able to recreate a sub mask for our agents to use to infiltrate a base to gather intel, we’d be going in blind on top of that. I know it’s not what you want to do, but that, and the information you got from Hale, are the three most important pieces this operation needs to move forward. You aren’t going to be in the trees picking off bad guys, but you did your job. If this goes how we’re hoping it will go, it will be because you made it happen that way.”

“Take the long view, Clint,” Phil says, keeping his tone a little more business like than Fury’s. “If it works, this plan will cut down on hundreds of casualties, potentially thousands, if Hydra were to exercise their capability of removing the subs they have now from play permanently. It only feels like you’re not doing anything because the command center isn’t usually where you use your weapons.”

“Latveria?” Clint asks, but without much hope.

“We already have our people in place there,” Fury says. “It would take too long to even get you there.”

“I’ll take clearing compounds of submissives then,” Clint says quietly. “I at least know all the rank insignia on Hydra uniforms by sight, and can take out any of the ranking officers I see.”

Phil goes still, exchanging a look with Hill. “You know all the Hydra rank insignia by sight?” he asks, but not as though he doubts Clint.

“You want him in Peru,” Hill says, her eyes gleaming. “In their high command.”

“He could cut their heads off while the rest of us are working on taking out the rest of the snake,” Phil says, looking at Fury quickly, seeing that he’s thinking about it. “He’s a spy, he’s a black ops specialist, and he uses a bow. As soon as Hydra’s brass find out what we’re doing, they’re going to call a conference. They’re all going to be in the same room at the same time. And, sir, it’s a compound we have detailed blueprints of. We can guess with some degree of accuracy where they’ll be meeting. Getting him in will be a cakewalk.”

“Getting him out again is going to be considerably more difficult,” Fury says. “As soon as someone realizes what’s going on, they’re going to lock down the facility.”

“I can get out,” Clint says simply, as though there is no question about it. “I can get out of anyplace. I know three ways to get out of SHIELD.”

“We can have a helicopter on the ground waiting to evac him, sir,” Phil says. “And Peru doesn’t have any submissives as far as we’ve been able to tell. It’s their command facility. You don’t keep possibly dangerous P.O.W.’s at your command facility.”

“We haven’t tracked a single shipment of subs there,” Hill says. “And we’ve got it surrounded by people right now checking into it in case we were wrong.”

Clint is feeling faintly hopeful now that he might actually have a job to do, a real job with his real weapon of choice. “If you know they’re in Peru, why haven’t you taken them out before now?” he asks. “Just blown up the whole complex?”

“The World Council won’t authorize it,” Fury says, with real disgust. “Peru is a political target, not a military target, not that it makes much difference with Hydra. But yeah, I can’t get the authority from higher up. But if we tell them we’re worried about a master control device in Peru,” Fury says slowly. “Something that will override all the others, we have a reason to send someone in and check it out.”

“Are we sure they don’t have a master control device in Peru?” Clint asks, abruptly frustrated again.

“Almost certain,” Fury says. “The Compound in Peru is their high command, but it’s also supposed to be their most secret redoubt. They have no idea we have blueprints to the place, annotated even, by the company that built it for them, which was, as luck would have it, a subsidiary of Stark Industries, via several shell corporations. Tony Stark has proven himself to be only sometimes helpful to us in the past, but he snapped up that contract as soon as he realized who it was for, and turned the blueprints directly over to us.

“The World Council is authorization level 13,” Clint guesses, and Fury spits out an oath. 

“Pretend you did not hear me talking about the World Council. Wipe it out of your mind. You don’t know the World Council exists.”

“Forgotten, sir,” Clint says. “How many of them do you think we’ll get in Peru? How many of them spend time there on a regular basis?”

“We don’t know most of their names, but we know that’s where their high command comes from. We can’t tell you for sure how many of them might be there at any given time, but… but if they’re waiting on the Mandarin to do something to start the ball rolling on bringing SHIELD down, we might have almost a full house. We have some faces.” He gestures at Hill, who drags up a laptop and punches in her security clearance and pulls up some faces. 

“They’re not careful about wearing the masks even outside the compound. But we also only have some insignia for some of them.” She scrolls down and shows it to Clint, who nods and twirls a finger indicating that she can go faster.

“None of these are new to me,” he says, sounding disappointed. 

“Not that surprising, if you know all their high ranking insignia already. They’re a council, not a body of government with a leader in place, which is all kinds of good news for us; they would actually be even more dangerous if they had a single titular head to follow. At any rate, we can’t blow them up because they are more or less an embassy, but if I give the World Council that you know nothing about just the tiniest reason, I can justify a break in and a clean out of whatever members of their current council happen to be on site.”

“How big is their council?” Clint asks.

“Ranges from thirty to forty-five members. We’ll be lucky if we get half of them,” Hill says. “Except we might get a little luckier than that, because all our intel says that they’ve been sticking to the embassy, those that we can identify. They want to be able to prove their whereabouts when all hell breaks loose with the Mandarin’s and Von Doom’s help. They can claim some level of ignorance if they’re sticking around their home base. Claim the Hydra agents kidnapping submissives are splinter cells of their so-called organization, which obviously does not claim Hydra as part of their resources.” She makes a harsh noise that doesn’t sound remotely like a laugh. “Although I really don’t think even the World Council would buy that one this time.”

“Does the World Council know you have blueprints to this facility?” Clint asks. “Because if they are all together, I can probably get in, do my work, and get out of there heavy all my used arrows if I have to. Can I see the blueprints?”

Phil pulls them up on the big screen that drops down out of the ceiling in front of the map, and Clint moves in close and begins to go over them carefully, not speaking for a long time. “You said Stark built this building?” Clint says, and when he turns around he’s grinning.

Fury nods.

“He left me lots of room to maneuver in here, lots of ventilations shafts and wide spaces between walls, and at least three tunnels to get out of, which the blueprints don’t show, but which the annotations do. He even left me a passage behind the wall of the main conference room, just a narrow one, but wide enough for me to get up into a ventilation shaft so that I can position and shoot from there. The whole thing is also wired with C4.” Clint traces a copper colored line around the edges of the rooms and the exterior of the buildings. “Copper is the color demolitions experts use to denote the use of C4. Did you guys not know this?”

“No, not personally, though I’m guessing our people would have picked up on it when we went over the blueprints with any actual intent to engage the high command,” Fury says, and Clint sees him actually grin in way that looks almost happy for the first time. “And we’re not going to use it right now, but damn, it could come in handy in the future.”

“Especially if whomever we don’t get in the initial strike goes to ground there,” Hill says.

“You’d have to get inside and plant detonators, I don’t see them marked on the map, but with the blueprints, that would be a snap,” Clint says. “How the hell does Hydra get to have an embassy?” Clint asks.

“By not calling themselves Hydra,” Phil says. “Their official title is ‘The Sons of German Veterans of World War Two,’ and they all have paperwork that shows that their fathers and grandfathers were working on the side of the angels. From within, if you get my meaning.”

“Why Peru, then?” Clint asks, puzzled.

“They’re the only place that would let them have embassy status,” Fury says. “Hydra does a lot of underground trading with Peru that the Peruvian government appreciates the hell out of.”

Clint makes a huffing sound. “How long does it take to get to Peru?”

“The Quinjets are all in use on the helicarrier,” Fury says, frowning. “We can get you there in less than six hours, which will give you a little time to eat and sleep and pack before you have to be on our fastest plane. We’ll want you in place hours and hours before the operation goes down. If I have my way, it will go down tonight, depending on what intel we get, or tomorrow night at the latest.”

Clint is staring at the blueprints again. “These are made of beauty for a spy trying to get in or out of there,” he says. “You owe Tony Stark a fruit basket. Even the cameras are marked. The conference room seals with an electronic keypad, which I can take out, and trap the brass in the room with me. I can even stay off film if I leave the arrows.”

“Let’s leave the arrows,” Phil says thoughtfully. “It will throw an interesting monkey wrench in Hydra’s idea of who the actual players are in this scenario. They might expect bullets. Arrows are going to give them something else to think about.”

“I’ll go along with it,” Clint says, though he isn’t all that happy about it. He always removes his spent ammunition, not just because it can often be cleaned up and reused, but because unless you know what you’re looking for, an arrow doesn’t really leave a distinctive kind of mark on a victim. Coroners don’t look for arrow injuries, police don’t recognize them for what they are. Especially at Clint’s level of skill, where he can just as easily slice along your jugular as he can put one through your chest. “It’ll be faster that way, too, no cleanup.”

“You don’t like it,” Phil says.

“I don’t generally leave any of my ammunition behind,” Clint says. “But I see what you’re getting at. Confusion to our enemies.”

“I’m not worried about the cops on the scene getting their hands on them. We can make them disappear out of evidence without a lot of trouble. I’m interested in letting Hydra think there is another player on the scene, someone new that slipped into and out of their high command and killed every officer there without making a sound,” Fury says. “It won’t last, you will eventually get traced back to us, but it may be something we can use in the meantime, if we can identify and take out other high ranking members the same way.” He looks at Hill. “Get someone on that, anyone who wears an insignia, in public or in private, is a target. We should be able to get them in their homes, on the streets, anyplace we can get Clint a clear line of fire. It doesn’t have to be entirely high ranking members, either. I want it to look like someone is targeting Hydra across the board.”

Clint is grinning. “This could be fun.” Phil sighs, and Clint bumps his shoulder up against him. “Admit it, it could be fun.”

“It would certainly make me sleep less soundly if I knew there was someone out there with a bow targeting my friends and allies,” Hill says. “Anyone can shoot you. With the right rifle, they can shoot you from two miles away. You have to be pretty fucking close to get taken out by a bow.” She looks at Clint. “The only catch is that you cannot leave survivors.”

“I don’t leave survivors,” Clint says flatly, and Hill gives him a brisk nod.

Fury’s phone rings, and they all quiet down and listen to him listen for several long silent moments. “Get them here soonest, debrief them as well as you can on the way.” He turns to Clint and Hill. “Our assets got all the information that they thought they could get and made their own exits,” he says, lips quirking just a little. “Just slipped away. Barton is right about the subs knowing a lot more than they can do anything about. They should be back in about four hours. They’ll do most of the debrief on the helicopter. We’ll have to keep it brief, if you have questions for the operative specifically,” Fury tells Clint. “We’ll want you in Peru by dark to give you the best chance of getting in and out.”

“I can get in and out during the day if I have to,” Clint says.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I just said I wanted to give you your best shot. Besides, things will start coming to a head with them the evening after you get there. Think you can hang out in Stark’s little hidey holes until they converge on the conference room?” Fury asks.

“A little food, and I can hole up in there for a lot longer than that,” Clint says. “I can tap the waterwalls for drinking water.” Clint taps the blueprint showing the conference room. “According to this, these walls are soundproofed. Even if I take incoming fire, no one in the rest of the building is going to hear it.”

“So, tomorrow night is the plan,” Fury says. “Both to get the best debriefing possible and to get Clint and the rest of our people in a position to bring this crashing down around Hydra’s heads. We’ll already be near enough to Latveria to make this happen at pretty much the same time. AIM is AIM. We’ll just drop people on them until we overwhelm them with force of numbers.” He looks to Phil. “Get your people together, and never mind if you have to pull them out of something else to get them here. We’ll worry about whatever missions we botch up by transferring them to this one later.” Phil stands up, and Clint stands up with him.

“I’m not going to be doing anything but making calls, if you want to hang out here where things are interesting,” Phil says.

“Need a little downtime to see to some equipment and just get in the right waiting mindset,” Clint says. “I’ll do that better with you close by.” His cheeks burn a little at the admission, but if Hill or Fury notice it, they don’t say anything about it.

The truth is, Clint can take care of his equipment any time he needs to and it won’t take any time to do it, and he doesn’t need to prepare himself for hanging out in the Hydra’s high command walls for a dozen hours or so, but he needs to be near Phil, and since he can’t quite say that, he prevaricates. 

“We should eat a real meal before our assets get back,” Phil says. “Are you hungry right now?” Clint shakes his head, keeping his eyes down and his mind moving through the steps of what he’s going to have to do once he gets to Peru.

“I’ll want that blueprint on a tablet,” Clint says, and Phil hands him one without comment. “Yeah, thanks,” Clint murmurs, and is unsurprised that Phil had thought about it already.

“I’ll be on your evac team,” Phil says, surprising Clint into stopping for a second in the hallway.

“You’re pretty much running the rest of the op,” Clint objects.

“Which I can do from anywhere in the world,” Phil says. “It’s all via satellite uplink anyway. What I can’t do is come in after you if it somehow goes to hell if I’m several countries away.”

Heat blossoms behind Clint’s breastbone, and he hopes it isn’t showing too clearly on his face. He had known he would be leaving Phil in the States, and he had thought he was fine with it, but knowing Phil is going to be there, ready, just in case, makes Clint’s heart pound in his chest.

“You should eat, all you had was a sandwich,” Phi chides, and Clint dips his head down a little.

“I’ll eat right before I get on the plane for Peru,” Clint says. “That should get me through most of the time I have to hide out in Hydra’s high command.” Then, thoughtfully, he says, “Can you get me Tony Stark on the phone?”

Phi stares at him for a long moment and finally says, “Probably, if you need him on the phone, but what for?”

“His cameras,” Clint says. “I’m betting his cameras are dumping footage someplace where he knows how to get to it, and if I can see that footage and match the faces up with the uniforms and insignia, I have a better chance of tracking down Hydra’s command staff after I get out of Peru.”

“That’s probably thousands of hours of footage, Clint,” Phil says, but he sounds interested anyway. “We can put the baby agents on it, Junior Agents too if it seems important enough. They should be able to get through it in a matter of a week or ten days. We can run facial recognition software to get whatever identities they’re living under, and just pick them off. It wouldn’t surprise me that Tony Stark would probably have the camera’s rigged and the footage dumped somewhere, but what made you think about it?”

“You don’t design a place like the one he designed if you don’t intend to get everything you can out of it. Stark may already be going through those data dumps and picking out the faces above the insignia, or he may be having it done by computer.” Clint grimaces. “It won’t be as certain if it was done by computer, people are just better at picking up on cues and body language, but… what?”

“Not Stark’s computer,” Phil says, sounding certain. “He’s got the most technically advanced computer system in the world. It will be able to pick up on body language and cues like salutes and deliver it all to you in a bundle of superhuman clarity. And even if we don’t get every high level Hydra down in this run, hundreds of soldiers move through that place every day. I should have thought of this months… years ago. Of _course_ Stark is exactly the kind of man to make backups of the video and have his supercomputer correlate them. I would have thought of it years ago, if Stark was on better terms with SHIELD. Hell, I would have asked him to dump the footage to us if we worked well together.”

Phil looks at Clint. “I’d better make this call. He doesn’t know you from Adam, and isn’t likely to tell you a damned thing.”

Clint nods, not exactly disappointed, but at a loss as to what to do while Phil makes his calls. He packs a light go bag, something that doesn’t contain anything he wouldn’t be willing to leave behind if he ended up having to do it, and waits for the assets to arrive. He sits on the couch curled up on the other end from Phil, and lets himself settle into that kind of watchful edge that he works best under.

Stark does have pictures, he has faces to go with the insignia, since the officers don’t wear masks inside of their compounds, but uniforms instead; what he doesn’t have is names, nothing had matched up in any of the databases that he’s run them through, but he’s willing to send the whole packet of data on the condition that Phil update him on the plan on getting the subs back from Hydra. Phil doesn’t clear it with Fury first; he just lays it out for Stark, as much as they have intel on so far. Phil listens for several minutes, and then hands the phone to Clint.

“Hello,” Clint says, puzzled.

“You got the annotated version, so you know where the hidey holes are I built into that building. I’ve been waiting for you people to do something with it for almost two years.”

“It’s going to be perfect for me,” Clint says, some of his excitement surging back into his voice. “I can slip in and out in broad daylight if I have to, it’s so well done.”

“I know,” Stark says, sounding smug. “You caught the C4?” 

“I did. We’ll have to get someone in with detonators, but if we have to blow the building, or get the chance to blow it with enough of Hydra’s brass inside, I should be able to get them primed in less than three hours.”

“I was guessing more like four or five,” Stark says.

“I’m good at what I do,” Clint says, and it’s his turn to sound smug. 

“I wanted to wish you good luck,” Stark says, sounding like he’s both serious and smirking at the same time. “And just because you could slip in and out in daylight doesn’t mean that you should.”

“It’s not in the plan,” Clint says. “How did you get that bid on that contract?”

“I heard through the grapevine that Hydra was going to build a high command center, and I set up enough shell corporations between it and SI for it to be almost impossible to trace it back to me. Then I bid low.” He laughs. “But I built sturdy, so I’ve had a couple of other Hydra contracts come across my radar. I haven’t taken any of them yet, but I can if you need me to.”

“You’d have to talk to Fury about that,” Clint says. “I don’t know how much involvement he wants you to have.”

“Yeah, I know, Fury hates me,” Stark says. “Tell Coulson to give you this number so that you can call and tell me how it all goes down.” Then Stark disconnects the call.

“He seems…” Clint says, and then isn’t sure how to finish that sentence.

“Impossible to work with on a daily basis, but basically dependable when things really start going to hell,” Phil finishes for him. “Come sort through this video packet so that you’ll recognize faces and insignia,” Phil says. “I still have calls to make.”

Clint goes through the information at a fairly quick pace. He’s not looking for the average soldiers here, just the brass, but still he has a dozen new faces and insignia under his collar when he makes it all the way through, and is feeling pretty good about being able to pick out these targets on the street, not that he’s likely to need to. SHIELD likely has better facial recognition software for the higher ups in Hydra’s hierarchy, and Phil’s facial recognition software will match them up to an identity, and SHIELD will shadow that identity until they have a good time to set Clint up with his bow to take him out. The same will happen on a slightly faster timeline with the faces of the lower ranking officers that Stark’s cameras had recovered, and Clint is looking forward to making Hydra’s brass acutely nervous over the next several weeks. But first, Peru, and Clint is glad that he’s going to get to be of at least some kind of help in this op. Maybe even a great deal of help, if there are as many high ranking Hydra officers in Peru as Hill seems to think there will be.

After he finishes going through the video packet, Clint stretches out on their couch and lays his head in Phil’s lap. Phil, on the phone with an asset at the time, pauses only briefly, before he continues on with the parameters of the mission and her qualifications that make her ideal.

Clint will learn to use a computer. He remembers Phil telling him that first day that if he wanted a higher degree of education, it wouldn’t be like a normal college or university experience, but that they could make it happen. He isn’t used to not having the skills necessary to get through a mission, and he doesn’t like it. He isn’t a novice with computers, exactly, but his skills, such as they are, all revolve around security systems, and he knows he’s not good enough to take care of the ones Hydra will have set up, if they have them set up that way. He’s still going to be pissed if it turns out to be a big red dial.

But in all actuality, Clint is a better fit for the mission in Peru, if the brass is really there. Somewhere between thirty and forty-five, Hill had said. Likely not all of them in the high command building right now, but still, a fairly large number for a lone sniper. He’ll have to expect return fire. Some of them, at least, will be armed. He toys with the blueprints on the tablet Phil had given him, and notes where he can get off several shots, move to avoid return fire, and then get off several more shots. A whole line of steel ductwork surrounds the room, with grills set into the drop down ceiling, which is what it will look like from inside the room, about twenty or so feet apart. Clint thinks he can stay ahead of them. And the building is so soundly built that they aren’t likely to hear his footsteps in the ductwork, so that gives him the option of doubling back if they start leading him with their fire. Not that that seems like it will be much of a problems. Stark’s annotations say that the ductwork is plated with bullet resistant steel. Clint considers the possibility of making friends with Tony Stark, and decides it would be a good idea if he can think of a way to manage it without pissing off Fury.

Not much time left before the assets get back with their information. Phil is still on the phone. Most of the conversations are short, as in Phil says: “I need you here to infiltrate a Hydra compound clandestinely and then possibly hack their security in order to take down a program that could possibly kill off of the subs they’re holding prisoner with a single keystroke.” A few of them are a little longer, asking about the layout of the compounds and a guesstimate of the personnel they’re going to have to either kill or avoid to get to the computer system, but Clint can tell from the tone of Phil’s voice that they are all telling him yes, emphatically yes, they are on board.

Fury calls Clint’s phone while Phil is still talking to an asset, and he answers “Specialist Agent Clint Barton,” just because he knows it will make Fury roll his eyes. Well. Eye.

“We’ve got our assets back. They’re currently being checked over by medical, but it’s just a precaution. If you wanted to make your way back to the war room and talk to them, they should be back here shortly.” Fury’s voice doesn’t seem to indicate any of the eye rolling Clint had been hoping for, which he hopes doesn’t mean things are even worse at the compounds than they had expected to find them.

“I’m on my way,” Clint says, and waits only long enough to tell Phil where he is going before he strides off in the direction of the war room.

The shortest version of the story is that the female submissives are being trained to fight, but are not, as they had all expected, being indoctrinated into Hydra’s ranks. Most of the bunkhouses in the satellite pictures are indeed submissive holding facilities, some of them for men who have refused to allow themselves to be taken in by Hydra, but most of them for women. The uncooperative men and women have been told that if they don’t follow commands on the battlefield, the guards will use what amounts to a low level taser device on them. The assets had seen them used, and it wasn’t pretty. They had all been warned that any kind of plot or mutiny against Hydra would result in them being hurt on a much larger scale, and all at once, or killed if they persisted in their attempts to fight back. The assets hadn’t been able to disable the device in the masks, which is, in some ways, good. Clint had been right. They are locked into their masks except to eat and sleep, and they are guarded rigorously any time their masks are removed. Despite all the bad news, the good news is that the subs are ready to fight Hydra. It won’t be necessary with the current plan in place, but they haven’t been broken, except for a solitary few that had never meant to be fighting subs anyway, but other than that, the subs are ready to defend themselves if necessary, which again, considering the plan, they won’t need to. They haven’t been abused other than psychologically, and as Phil has often said, subs are strong. They’ve been dealing pretty well.

As far as the device that controls all the sub’s masks at once, all that they know is that it’s somewhere in the compound. They can’t give a definitive answer on whether it’s a computer system or something simpler. Some of the men who have gone over to Hydra might have seen it, but they don’t have any communication between them to find out.

The most important piece of intelligence the assets have been able to come back with, in Clint’s opinion, is that the handheld devices the guards use have to be recharged after each use, which means that it’s entirely possible that if they use the main control device to knock all the subs out at once, it will have to recharge before it can be used to kill them all in retaliation. That isn’t a definitive fact, but it is an encouraging possibility. It makes sense that the device would have to build up a charge to send electricity through the masks of all the subs present, and it makes even more sense that after using it for that, the chances of there being enough of a charge left in the device to kill the subs after it’s been used to knock them out is slim.

Hill briefly outlines the plan to the assets, and while they don’t think the subs Hydra has are going to be thrilled with being knocked out for all or most of the fight, they agree that it’s a good plan, more likely to succeed than anything the two of them had been able to come up with, and that the subs will realize it once they’re rescued, and won’t hold some minor electrocution against them. They even agree about the timing of the attack. After dinner, the subs are all confined to the barracks until lights out, so the medevac teams will have an even easier time of finding them. They don’t know about what the male submissives inside are allowed to do, and have no suggestions about getting them out beyond flooding the compounds with grounds troops and dragging them out as best they can while fighting the actual Hydra agents. Medevac will try to help with some of that, but their priority is getting the ones in the barracks behind a perimeter line to safety, and then they’ll break into smaller groups and try to stay low to the ground while getting the submissives inside the compound outside and behind the perimeter.

They have absolutely no information about any officers that might be inside the compounds. They assume that there must be, as the orders have to be coming from somewhere, but according to the subs the assets had managed to talk to, they haven’t seen a single officer, some of them in the entire nearly five years they’ve been held prisoner in the compounds.

Clint ponders that for several long minutes, and then decides that each compound probably has a fairly low ranking officer inside that doesn’t come out and mingle with the subs, but that those officers are getting their orders from Peru. He ups the number of high level officers in Peru based on that information, but doesn’t pass it on to Phil, even though he knows he should. Besides, Phil is busy, getting his people in order, and Clint is still pretty sure he can take out the full forty-five command staff that Hill had said might be in the facility. It will be harder, and will up his chances of getting hurt, but it’s not impossible.

Sometime later, when Clint is once again studying the blueprint, this time with his eyes on the officer’s quarters, Phil comes and gets him and feeds him steak and a baked potato with asparagus. “You’ll have to try to sleep on the plane,” Phil tells him. “We’ll land about an hour before dawn, and we want you inside the command post before it gets light out.”

“There’s a hedge maze that leads directly into a secret passage,” Clint tells Phil.

“Which won’t help you if there are men on the roofs with guns,” Phil retorts.

“Point taken,” Clint admits, although he still thinks it’s pretty cool.

“Your evac plan is by helicopter about one mile from the tunnel that comes out through the back of the house. It’s heavily enough forested that it should provide you some cover if you leave under pursuit. We’ve already found a clearing wide enough to let us maneuver up into the air. You’ll be headed southwest to get to us.”

“I know, Phil,” Clint says gently.

“Your backup evac is by boat, but we want to avoid that one, as it will take you into Lima, and you don’t exactly blend. But it’s the best we can do. I’ll be in your ear any time I’m not on the mission channel. If either of those evacs don’t work, we’ll figure out something else. Another pass with the helicopter maybe.” Though they both know that won’t work. A surprise helicopter taking off in the woods is going to be able to get out of range before it can be brought down in a hail of bullets, especially a helicopter as stealthy and lightweight as this one is. A second pass will mean they’re expecting it, and will have brought out heavy artillery to deal with it. Assuming they are not still roaming around inside trying to decide what to do with their whole command structure dead. “We’ll figure something out,” Phil says firmly, and Clint nods.

“At the very least, there are likely to be cars and trucks coming and going all damned day after the hits. I can stowaway until I can get somewhere out in the open, and you’ll be able to track me with my beacon,” Clint says, more to reassure Phil than anything. “And if the absolute worst happens, I can stay in the house, Phil. There are hidey holes everywhere, and eventually things will settle down enough so that I can make my way out again. But I think the helicopter thing is going to work.”

Phil nods, brow furrowed with worry. “If the assets are right and there aren’t any senior Hydra personnel in any of the compounds, you could end up with, if we go with Hill’s guesstimate, forty-five Hydra officers to pick off in the command center.”

“The building was designed for this,” Clint tells him. “There are steel, bullet resistant air shafts running all the way around the length of the room. I may take fire, but I don’t expect them to be fast enough to pin me down. I can destroy the keypad to keep anyone from leaving or coming in, and then it’s just a matter of letting me do my job.”

“I’d feel better if you’d take a rifle,” Phil says. “Then at least you’d have the chance to take them out in clusters.”

“That sort of defeats the purpose of the plan,” Clint reminds him gently. “Confusion to our enemies.”

Phil smiles a little. “Tell me you can do this without getting killed, Clint,” Phil says, turning to face him, his face pale.

“I can do it without getting killed,” Clint says, and prays to God that he’s telling Phil the truth. He’s almost sure he is. He’s done harder things with worse odds. But he’d give a lot to have Nat with him right now.

“Plane will be getting ready to board within a couple of hours. Do you have everything you need? And for God’s sake, Clint, I know we all agree that the bow is going to be a kind of calling card for Hydra dead for a while, and it’s a good calling card, a scary one, but if you need to use your guns, promise me you’ll do it and get out.”

“I promise, but I won’t need the guns. I have them on me, I’ve got ten clips, I’m armed for bear, but I have 80 broadheads and 30 specialty arrows, so if the worse really does come to the worst, I can blow my way out of the house with those. Phil, this is what I was made for.” He gentles his voice. “You know this is what I was made for.”

“I know. I know I also told you I was never going to be perfectly certain of your safety unless you were standing right next to me, so for my sake, make the helicopter before dawn.”

“If it all goes well, I’ll make the helicopter well before dawn. I know you will be busy, but if you can, keep me at least a little in the loop about the submissives. This is my plan. If they all die because of this plan, I want to know about it.”

“Let’s get your go bag and get on board the plane,” Phil says, without commenting on that possibility.

They return to their quarters. “Ninety minutes,” Clint says. “Take your clothes off.”

“There’s no time…” Phil starts, and Clint puts a hand over his mouth. “You’re going to have to change into your tactical gear anyway, so you might as well take your clothes off and let me just try something real quick. If it doesn’t work out, it won’t take more than ten minutes.”

Clint licks his lips, abruptly nervous, though he has been thinking about it since he realized he was going on this mission, and that he was going in solo, and that there was always the chance that he could die, no matter how slim he keeps telling himself that chance is.

Phil strips down quickly, flinging his suit across the bed in an untidy rumple of fabric. “Sit on the edge of the bed,” Clint directs, and Phil sinks down wordlessly, watching Clint with sharp and wanting eyes. Clint licks his lips again and realizes that his mouth is watering. The last time that had happened, it had been because he had wanted to put it on Phil’s skin. Had wanted to smell him and taste the clean sweat of exertion on him.

This time is different.

Clint goes to his knees between Phil’s thighs, which splay wider as if in unspoken command, and Clint leans down and slicks the flat of his tongue along the head of Phil’s cock.

“Clint,” Phil says, “don’t,” but breathlessly.

“They called me cocksucker because I was good at it, Phil,” Clint says, and gazes down the long length of Phil’s cock, which has already hardened between his thighs. “Because it humiliated me, too, but also because I was good at it.”

“You don’t have to do this for me,” Phil says. “I don’t need this from you.”

“Maybe you don’t, but if I can do this and make it good for _me_ , Phil, you can bet your ass it will encourage me to come back safe and well so that I can do it again.”

Phil laughs a little, a sound that breaks off into a choked silence. 

Clint leans forward and takes the thick head of Phil’s cock into his mouth, reminding himself, after all these years of not practicing, to keep his teeth behind his lips, and slides down as far as he can, further, in fact, than he can take Phil in his ass all at once. He takes about half, and Phil grates out a little cry of pleasure as Clint wraps his tongue around the head of his cock and then presses it along the bottom, along the big vein. Phil’s hips jerk upward slightly, and Phil stills them immediately, but that jerk had made Clint’s cock jerk in his pants, that helpless response enough to draw an equally helpless response from him. Clint wraps his left hand around the bottom of Phil’s shaft and tugs up at the hard weight of it, and Clint isn’t scared at all, this is not something that unlocks a hoard of unpleasant memories for him. It’s almost like he’s doing it for the first time. 

He pulls his mouth back, and then goes back down, tugging upward to meet his lips with his fist, and he goes down a little further this time. Phil makes a sound like he’s in agony, and Clint flicks his eyes up to see his face. Phil’s eyes are closed and his mouth is open and wet, and he is breathing in harsh little pants of sound, and Clint does the same again, going down a little further this time, and Phil groans out a sound that almost certainly means that he’s never had this, Phil had even told him he’d never had it, not really, and that he wouldn’t miss it, but Clint wants to give it to him. He wants to and he slides down further, and the head of Phil’s cock bumps against the back of his throat, and Clint makes a brief choking sound that is almost precisely mirrored by Phil. He slides his hand down further, hoping he remembers this trick, and then bends over Phil’s lap and lets his cock slide past his gag reflex and into his throat. Phil is wider than ever this way, scrapes the inside of Clint’s throat raw, but Clint keeps going until he’s all the way down, his eyes watering from effort and lack of air, and then pulls up just enough that Phil’s cock almost slips free of his throat before pressing back down around him again, and the second time it doesn’t feel so raw.

“Clint,” Phil whispers, his voice trembling. “I’m going to come, I’ve never…” and Clint pulls back only because he wants the taste of Phil’s come in his mouth, sucking hard and swirling his tongue around the shaft, hollowing his cheeks and going back down far enough to just bump the back of his throat against Phil’s cock again, and then Phil’s hands bury themselves in his hair, not pulling, not pressing, not even guiding, but maybe just to feel his hands in Clint’s hair, and he comes with a low, rumbling cry of pleasure, hips rocking just a little now, like he can’t help it, but Clint doesn’t mind it. Phil would never hold him on his cock if he tried to pull off, because Phil is not Trickshot, or any of the people that Trickshot had let do this to him, and Clint moans around Phil’s cock, a sound Phil gives back an octave higher, and then Clint pulls slowly off of Phil, taking the time to explore the length and width of him with his tongue, the weight of his cock heavy, even softening as he is. Phil is staring down at him with dazed eyes, and his eyes widen a little as he sees the tear tracks on Clint’s cheeks, and Clint smiles and catches his hands. 

“It’s just hard because you’re so wide,” Clint tells him. “These are not bad tears. These are just tears of effort. Nothing about that was bad for me, Phil. Everything about it was everything it should have always been.”

Then Phil is kissing him so hard that Clint’s head rocks back, and Phil catches his neck with the palm of his hand in the exact right way, the way that makes Clint feel content and safe and cared for.

“I’m a submissive,” Clint says, tangling the words with Phil’s lips, and then has to clear his throat again,and pull back and force himself to look up into Phil’s eyes when he says it. “I’ve always been a submissive, but I never knew what that really meant. After Trickshot, I thought there would never be enough trust in the world to let anyone else know ever again. I was wrong. I trust you. You make it feel right to be what I am, and that’s, Phil, that’s such a relief. I didn’t know how little I was getting of what I needed until you showed me. You make me feel like a whole person again, after years and years of starving myself without even realizing that’s what I was doing. I want to tell you more, other things, but now is not the time. But I don’t want to keep this secret anymore. I want you to know. I’m _your_ submissive, if you still want me.”

“I will always want you,” Phil says, and cradles Clint’s jaw in his palms. “I knew from the second time, and it’s mandatory to report that kind of trauma, but I didn’t. I wanted you to be mine too much, and I was sure, I was _sure_ that you were not unfit, your whole life previous to SHIELD was enough to prove that you weren’t unfit, and if I had reported it, you would have been in the wind. I knew it, and it was selfish, but I knew you could fit in here, Clint, I swear I didn’t do it just for me. I swear I did it as much for you as I did it because I wanted you. And then the more you let me see of you, the more sure I was that I would take what you could give me and live with whatever you couldn’t. I’ve had more specialists than any six or seven other SHIELD agents combined, but I’d never had a real submissive, and I wasn’t going to give you up just because there were some things you couldn’t or wouldn’t do. The things that you would do, that you did do, were more than enough. And you still don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do, Clint. That was… that may have been the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life, but you never have to do it again if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” Clint says, his eyes prickling. “I want to do everything with you. I was so confused about you. I don’t know when you became important to me, except that I know when I realized it. It was when your asset came at you, and I knocked him across the room. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would have beat him to death for _daring_ to touch you. You… you’re mine to protect. And I want to be yours however you’ll let me.” Clint’s heart is pounding in his chest, and he can feel himself choking on what he wants to say, and finally manages, “I think I’m in love with you,” and stares at Phil, feeling how wide his eyes are and how terrified he must look.

“I _know_ I’m in love with you,” Phil says, and pulls Clint into another kiss, his hand cradling the back of his neck. “I knew it before you let me put the collar on you, but that was the first time I thought you might let me teach you how to love me back. That we might be on the same page, at least. And how you looked at me, Clint. Like you would have been content to sit at my feet all night just looking up at me.” Phil’s hand is still cradling the back of Clint’s neck, just holding there, calm and steady and safe. “You have to come back to me safely now. There is more I want to tell you, so if you want to know, you have to come back to me safe.”

Clint’s lips quirk. “Curiosity as a form of blackmail,” he says roughly, his throat still raw from having Phil’s cock buried in it. “I’ll come back,” he promises. Phil pulls him in for one last kiss, and Clint lets it go on as long as he can manage it and still be able to walk right to the plane.

“You should get up and get dressed. Our plane takes off in thirty-five minutes.” 

Phil groans, but slides off the end of the bed and digs through the closet until he finds his field uniform. It’s fitted better than standard tactical gear, and Clint can see the armor protecting the tender parts of him, but Phil is right, his field gear is nothing like Clint’s armor. “You should have armor,” Clint says.

“The field gear has always been good enough, and with things the way they’re going to be tonight, I’m not even going to be on the scene for the mission. This is just in case something happens,” Phil says, pulling on underwear and then the pants, the white undershirt, the kevlar vest, which Clint sees has armor plates sewn into them like the ones on the back of his vest, so that they can deflect a blade, but still give him plenty of range of motion. “And it’s been upgraded almost as effectively as your armor is.” He slides on his shirt and buttons it up. “The Armory doesn’t have time to make and keep in stock armor for every Agent we’ve got. They barely have time to take care of our assets. They only take special care of me because I bring them baked goods.” He slides on his belt and attaches the holster to the hip, the first time Clint has seen him wear one there, and then slides on his shoulder holster as well.

“Promise me that if things are going badly, you’ll just shoot them and get yourself out of there,” Phil says, expression serious. “Promise me, Clint.”

“I promise I will not get killed in there because I’m too stubborn to go for a gun,” Clint says, smiling a little. “But you’re worrying too much. I like the ‘Confusion to Our Enemies’ plan. I like the idea of tracking them down and taking them out with them having no idea that it’s just me. And if I take them all cleanly with the bow, it will be awhile before anyone finds the bodies.”

Clint grabs his go bag. 

“What have you got in there this time?” Phil asks.

“The tablet with the blueprints on it and medical supplies, just in case I get shot a little bit. I don’t want to leave my DNA all over the crime scene. Some power bars and something to use to tap one of the faucets in one of the water walls.”

“We can take care of getting rid of your DNA information on file. Do not get shot, not even a little bit.”

Clint looks at Phil, smiling faintly. “I’ll do my best,” he says finally. “But if they shoot back at me, there is always going to be a chance that they’re going to get lucky.”

“God help me, you’re going to drive me crazy,” Phil says, and slides his hand around the back of his neck. Clint lets it rest there, content, for several long seconds. 

“I love it when you do that,” Clint admits.

“I know. I can see how it calms you down.” Phil kisses him once more, briefly. “Don’t get shot.” Then, without ceremony, he unlocks and removes Clint’s collar. He locks it again and slides it into his pocket. “Come back if you want it back,” he says.

“I want it back,” Clint says, his hand automatically going up to feel the naked skin of his neck. “I knew it would come off for missions, but…” He looks down and slightly away. “I want it back. Try not to worry. This is what I do. And there is a lot of cover in this room, if I have to come down out of the vents. Worry about the submissive op. Don’t worry about me. I’m doing what I was made to do.” Clint gives Phil a sunny grin. 

“Plane,” Phil says, and they exit their quarters and have both run to get to the garage and then drive Lola like a bat out of hell to make it to the airstrip on time.

A butler comes out of the small, sleek jet, and asks, “May I take your luggage, sir?”

“No, I’ve got it,” Clint says. Phil lets the butler take some of the multiple computer cases he’s carrying, and they walk up the short flight of stairs to the plane.

The plane is small, the plane is luxurious, and the plane is equipped with everything Phil needs to keep his ears on the op. The plane is also equipped with a small sleeping chamber with a real bed, and Clint, aware of how much sleep he’s not going to be getting for the next couple of days, curls up on it and is asleep before the plane leaves the runway.

He wakes immediately, the habit so ingrained that it feels normal, and feels the wheels of the tiny plane on the pavement of what is probably an equally tiny runway. The runway has a helicopter pad on it, which has an ultralight, ultraquiet helicopter on it. 

“We’ll take you with us to the evac spot,” Phil says.

“Is it safe to take this thing so close to the command center?” Clint asks, and that’s when he realizes that he’s talking loudly to be heard over the rotors of the helicopter, but isn’t having to shout. 

“We could land it closer if we could find a clearing big enough,” the pilot says. “As it is, you’ll have to hike it out to us once you get done with whatever you’re doing.” Clint nods once in understanding, and sees that there are only two seats in the back of the helicopter, and the rest of the interior of the cabin is lined with tables with velcro straps wrapped around them, likely to strap things down so they don’t move around while flying. 

Phil immediately begins taking out multiple computers and setting them up, strapping them conscientiously down. Clint tucks his go bag between his feet, and watches Phil get everything up and running.

“Sooner is better,” Phil says, looking harried and distracted, apparently talking to the pilot. “We want to get him there while it’s still dark.”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot says, and the machine almost floats up into the air, it’s so light, and the rotors are so silent the sound of them could have been covered up by a large flock of birds. Clint watches the countryside spread out around them, low jungle that looks black in the total lack of light the helicopter is putting out.

“Are you allowed to fly this thing without lights?” Clint asks.

“No, sir,” the pilot says cheerfully, clearly unconcerned. It isn’t until they can actually see the command center, built at the top of a gently sloping hill, that the helicopter dips low and begins to skim the canopies of the trees below him. “A little shaky through here,” the pilot says, still sounding cheerful, and they circle twice before they land in a very small clearing indeed. 

“Can you get back here through the woods at night?” the pilot wants to know. “I have a compass. We’re southwest of the… Embassy.” He sneers the last word.

“I can make it back,” Clint says. His direction sense is excellent. It has always had to be. 

“Be safe,” Phil says, giving him a long, solemn look, but not kissing him again.

“Concentrate on the op. If I’m in trouble, I’ll comm you. Otherwise, assume no news is good news. I should be back before dawn.”

“Comm me every two hours no matter what,” Phil says, his tone flat and no nonsense. There’s no point in making me wonder whether you’re still alright; it will just distract me. We’ll be here until then. Then it’s your secondary evac. We can’t even take a bird this light and quiet in the air once the sun is up,” Phil says, frowning.

“I can handle Lima if I have to,” Clint says. “And you’ve got the tracker. If I can’t leave the house tonight, come set down in this spot again tomorrow night, and I’ll make it out then.”

Phil nods tightly.

Clint checks his bow and quiver, tucks his earbud into his ear and makes sure he has the radio booster, just in case, then turns and jogs off in the direction of the command center, which is easy to do because it’s the only thing lit up in the entire countryside. It’s still dark out when he reaches the hedge maze, and regretfully detours around it, since it’s technically the long way to get into the building. Six feet from the southwest corner of the building is a decorative trellis covered in ivy and some kind of white, flowering night blossom. He eases the left side of it to one side, ducks down and finds the panel Stark’s blueprints had indicated is hidden behind it, and uses a stem of ivy to pull both panel and trellis securely in behind him. He pauses to get his bearings, and then turns left, where he eventually reaches a southward facing ventilation shaft that is tall enough for him to walk upright in, bless Tony Stark’s conniving heart. He has the blueprints almost by memory now, but he takes them out anyway and checks them when he reaches a four-way split in the shaft, and takes the right branch. Lights are beginning to show through grates in the shafts, and he bends down to take a peek through one of them. Kitchen. He’s right where he’s supposed to be. The next passage is another right, and then straight through to the ventilation shafts above the conference room. He circles the room, noting lines of fire and lots of computer terminals and groupings of furniture around which to duck if he ends up having to get out of the shaft for this. The screws securing the grates to the inside of the shaft are short, and will be easy to kick free. Undoubtedly thanks to Tony Stark. If he has to get down on the floor, he can do it, but he’d much rather stay up here where he has a good view of the room and a great deal more cover. 

The conference room looks more like a lounge than a place to get business done to Clint. There are several groupings of comfortable furniture, a fully stocked bar, the counter behind which would make a good bolt hole, and even a piano. The only thing that looks like it should go in a conference room is a large computer with multiple screens. Clint works his way arounds so that he can see the screens, and sees that there are forty-two of them, each showing a different compound. He’s relatively sure they’re different compounds, anyway. Some of them look enough alike that it’s hard to be certain. Hydra personnel in full masks are circulating in and out of the camera shots in different viewscreens. No, forty-one of them are showing Hydra compounds. One of them is blank.

He clicks his earbud onto the Phil only frequency. “How many compounds did you say you have found?” he asks.

“Forty-one,” Phile says at once, and Clint can’t help the big old shit eating grin on his face. 

“There’s a computer in here showing forty-one compounds, all mostly from different angles, with different people walking through them. I think you got them all, Phil,” Clint murmurs. “This is a view from the conference room, and there’s no way to be sure it’s not showing me one compound from more than one direction at a time, but why would they?”

There had been a hard and serious discussion about when to stop trying to find new bases with subs and when to attack so as to rescue those subs they already knew about. They had all been aware that if they missed compounds, the subs there would likely be murdered out of hand to get rid of any incriminating evidence.

For a long moment, Phil doesn’t say anything. Then, for Clint’s ears only, he says, “Thank fucking God.”

“It’s theoretically possible that they have compounds out there that aren’t showing on this computer terminal, but I can’t think of one good reason why one wouldn’t be if all the rest are,” Clint murmurs.

“No,” Phil says, voice very slightly unsteady. “We still won’t kill all of Hydra this way, but it’s really good to hear that there isn’t a very strong possibility that missing a compound means condemning all the subs in that compound to death.”

“I thought you’d want to know. Can’t really talk, am in the bad guys’ lair. But yeah. I wanted to let you know what I am seeing.”

Phil huffs out a laugh. “Carry on, specialist.”

“Yes, sir,” Clint agrees cheekily.

Then he goes back to doing what snipers do when they’re bored. He finds the waterwall and taps into one of the faucets so he’ll be able to get a drink if he needs one, and then he just waits. It’ll be most of the day, things won’t start to go down until early evening, but Clint wants to watch the conference room-slash-lounge. He wants to see who comes and goes out of it, and memorize their faces, if not for now, then for some point in the future when he gets the time to go hunting. He checks in with Coulson every two hours as per orders, eats a power bar when his stomach tells him lunch has rolled around, and taps in the mission frequency often enough to find out that they already have about half of their specialists and assets in place, all ready to sync up and take all the compounds out at once, and that they’d been able to recognize the control terminal because it has a guard of two masked Hydra goons on it at all times. Those will have to be taken care of, and as quietly as possible, and even then there’s always the chance that more goons will show up while their people are trying to activate and then destroy the terminals, which are, it turns out, computer terminals, not giant red dials. Clint feels a little better about the whole situation because of that fact, but isn’t fooling himself. He’s still got a hard job ahead of him, just like their people do.

Then it’s just waiting and more waiting. Clint gets up and down and moves around as much as he can to keep from getting stiff, and under other circumstances, he’d love to explore all the little niches and cubbies that Stark had built into this place, but those are minor annoyances, easily pushed aside. He’s waiting for things to start going wrong on the other ends of those computer screens, waiting for people to show up to discuss what to do about it, waiting, in fact, to trap them all in this room and kill them all, so minor exploring is something he can put off until later, though he does trail his way all the way through the twists and turns it would take him to get him out of here in at least six different places. He has the time, and better to be sure of an escape route he might need than to need it and find it has fallen into disrepair at some point since the compounds construction.

He eats two more powerbars and gets himself a drink, and his watch is telling him it’s getting toward late in the day. He keeps his face turned in the direction of the computer monitors, waiting for one of them to show something going wrong. There had been no exact time frame, just late in the day, and Clint is growing anxious in his hidey hole when an alarm claxon sounds throughout the compound, loud and supremely annoying, a warbling braying sound that seems to drill into the fillings in his back teeth.

After a minute or so, the claxon dies down, but people have started showing up in the room by now, and Clint has eyes only for them. He recognizes most of them, some from faces, some from insignia, and he sits back and waits and counts as more and more men begin to fill up the room. One of the men is trying to raise one of the compounds showing fighting going on in the computer display on the radio, and Clint is willing to bet that one had been Capiro’s, the first to go, and now Capiro has to tuck himself away somewhere out of the way so that he can talk the rest of them through the security in case they get hung up in it somewhere. More catastrophes begin to show up on more screens, and Clint really wishes these things had sound, because he’d love to hear what was going down.

Below him, a group of about forty men are arguing in German, which Clint happens to speak, but they’re all shouting over each other so vehemently that it’s hard to tell what they’re actually saying. On some of the screens, Clint can see the dark shapes of SHIELD medevac people pulling submissives out of the barracks, while ground troops pretty much mow down anyone left standing in a Hydra uniform.

Forty-three men, but Clint still doesn’t see the one he wants, the one with the highest rank insignia that he’d had a picture to go with. Several others have the same insignia, but no pictures, but this one… Clint just hadn’t liked the look of him. Another man comes in, out of breath, his uniform mussed like he’d just picked it up off of the floor and thrown it on, and Clint thinks, _Well, at least he got lucky tonight_. Clint is about to give it up, wait for another day to hunt down the high level face and take out the ones he can right here and now, when he walks in, flanked by another pair of men on either side of him, these four also wearing the highest ranking insignia. He raises his voice to cut through the furor in the room, and everyone is immediately listening. Clint had gotten that feeling from him. That vibe that he was a guy that people listened to. “Report,” he says, and points to another man with decent rank insignia, and the poor guy can only tell what he’s seen, which is that all forty-one of their bases had been invaded by SHIELD forces, and that they appear to be trying to take back the submissive captives. “Get me someone on one of those bases, I don’t care which one,” the man demands, and though a couple of more men have trickled in the door behind him, Clint decides it’s time to close this place off and turn it into a shooting gallery.

Because he can’t shoot through the vents, he kicks one out of the steel it’s embedded in, thank you Tony Stark and your extremely short screws. It pops out with practically no force required, and Clint takes aim at the security pad set in the door and sends a pair of arrows whizzing into it. There is a crackle and an arc of blue flame, and then Clint nocks three arrows and takes out three of the stunned men staring up at him from the floor, apparently still not sure what’s going on. Clint nocks three more arrows, and takes down three more targets before someone pulls out a gun and starts returning fire. 

Clint runs down to the next vent and kicks it open. It’s on the opposite corner from where he’d been, so every bad guy in the room is still looking at the open hole in the ductwork Clint had just previously been standing in. He pulls down seven this time, they’ve spread out a little, clearly getting their wits about them enough to know that they don’t want to be in such close quarters with their fellows if Clint is that good with his bow. He picks out three with one shot, and fells four more with two arrows nocked at a time, and there are more guns being pulled now, and Clint ducks out of the way. He skips the next vent and goes on to the one after it, which puts him at their backs. Clint takes down eleven of them, all single shots, before they realize they’ve been flanked and turn to face him. Clint ponders going back the way he’d come, or continuing to circle the room. Gunfire is dimpling the bullet resistant steel ahead of him in the tunnel, a few of them trying to lead him, and he darts back in the other direction, again skipping the vent he’d left intact so that he can flank them again. He takes down nine, six shots and nine arrows, and a bullet grazes his upper arm -- not even as painful as the sting of one of the humming-wasps -- which he takes as a sign that he should move on. He’s counting targets in his head now. He circles the vent work at a run, trusting in Tony Stark’s clear design on exactly how this ductwork is supposed to be used, and the eleven men left standing are opening fire along the lines of the vent work, but there just aren’t enough of them to cover every possible opening, and Clint kicks a vent down on the wall opposite the one he’d been doing all the shooting from. They’ve spread out wide enough now that he has to pick them off one at a time, but he still gets seven down, and finds himself pinned between two gunmen that are pouring bullets into either side of the vent Clint is standing on. He can feel them starting to tear their way through the metal, and takes the one on the left in the face and runs in that direction. Is it three more? Four? Clint finds a vent he hasn’t kicked open yet and peeks through. His targets are discarding their empty guns and going for the door, including the face with the insignia -- Clint will someday find out his name -- and Clint, buzzing with adrenaline and relief, kicks the vent out of the wall and takes all five of them in the back. There had been a total of fifty one, to Hill’s guesstimate of forty-five, but that’s why they call it a guesstimate, he guesses. He takes the time to put a few more arrows in bodies that might still be twitching a little, but the point is to keep him off camera, so he can’t go down and do a more thorough job of it.

He makes his way back to his go bag and slaps a bandage on his arm, finds the exit nearest him and nearest the southwest trajectory he’s going to have to take to his evac, and it turns out to be the same trellis he’d entered from. He takes more care leaving, bow out, arrow nocked, but still doesn’t hear anything coming from inside the compound, and the woods are quiet and cool and apparently empty of any pursuers at the moment. Clint doesn’t want to push his luck. Thanks to Tony Stark and, yes, his own skill and planning, he’d gotten extremely lucky back there, so he runs when he can run, jogs when the foliage is too thick, and breaks out into the clearing with the helicopter in it with so much relief that it feels fucking amazing to be alive. He dives into the backseat with Phil, and would have immediately planted one on him, but Phil is talking on the mission frequency and it would be rude to interrupt. The pilot, who had been taking a smoke break when Clint had scampered out of the woods, immediately puts out his cigarette and climbs into the cockpit. 

He waits until Phil is finished talking, and then says, “This is such a lightweight bird that she doesn’t carry a lot of fuel. I can get you back to the jet or to Lima, but after that I’m going to have to put her down somewhere to fuel.”

“The jet,” Phil says, taking Clint’s shoulders in both hands and holding him back so that he can inspect him thoroughly. “I told you not to get shot,” Phil says, but he’s smiling, and Clint grins back at him. 

“It’s just a graze, it hardly counts,” Clint says at the same time Phil says, “I expected you to be longer.”

“Shooting fish in a barrell,” Clint says. “Though we owe Tony Stark a big fat thank you card for the work he did on that compound. I would have been shot a lot more if it weren’t for his bullet resistant steel plating on the floor of the vents and the vent work tall enough for me to stand up and walk upright in. He planned that room to be a killing zone, and since he underbid everyone else for the job to do it, I know it took money out of his own pocket to do it.”

“We took two casualties among the specialists, but not before they knocked the subs out and destroyed the terminals they were working on,” Phil says, sounding both thrilled and crushed at the same time. “We lost more ground troops, getting the male submissives out of the fucking control centers, but nowhere near what we would have lost if not for you.” Phil pauses, and says, “Coulson,” clearly talking into the radio. “Yes, sir, you can presume Peru went according to plan,” Phil says, blushing, apparently realizing his mic had been live the whole time. “We’re on our way back to the jet, now. I can continue on in charge of operations for as long as we’re in the air.”

Clint clicks his earbud to the mission frequency while they board the jet. “... this is mostly cleanup,” Fury is saying. “Hill can take it from here. Lateveria’s subs practically freed themselves, you can tell Barton he was right about them all along, and the AIM complexes we hit never stood a chance.” Fury sounds uncharacteristically mellow. “A good day’s work,” he says. “Take care of Barton’s bullet wound, we’re going bow hunting for Hydra targets, and I need him at full strength.”

“I’ll pass it along, sir,” Phil says, and clicks off the mission frequency with some reluctance. 

“Hill can handle it,” Clint says, clicking his own radio off. 

“I know, I just don’t like to not finish what I start,” Phil says.

They land on the helipad on the little runway and Phil gets all of his computers bagged and makes Clint help him carry them to the jet, despite his bullet wound. The door is barely closed behind them when Clint drops the computers he’s carrying onto a plush chair and sinks to his knees at Phil’s feet.

Phil sets aside what he’s carrying, and dips in his pocket, his face gentle but his eyes glittering, and brings out Clint’s collar. He unlocks it, and Clint bows his head. Phil pulls it around his throat and locks it, holding Clint still by the back of the neck for several long seconds before urging him to his feet and kissing him hard but fast.

The butler comes by and asks if they’d like drinks or meals during the flight. Clint says yes to both -- power bars can get you through, but it’s nothing like real food -- and Phil asks for a martini, but passes on the food. The butler gives Clint a menu, and Clint picks out the salmon, but just asks for scotch on the rocks for a drink.

“Capiro?” Clint asks, unable not to ask.

“Is fine, already back behind the perimeter. All the other assets and specialists are. We just lost the two. I don’t think you knew either of them.” Phil’s face clearly shows that he had known them both, however, and if Clint were more sure the butler wouldn’t be scandalized, he’d lean over the small table they’re sitting at to eat and kiss Phil until that look of loss left his eyes. Instead he reaches across the table and rests his hand on top of Phil’s, and Phil’s face goes a little brighter, a little less hurt. “How did your side of it go?” he asks, and Clint shrugs a little.

“I’m not kidding about owing Tony Stark a thank you for that place. It had six secret ways in and out, and the vent work was all shored up with bullet resistant steel. Even the vent work itself wasn’t really visible from the room below. They were just trying to shoot my feet out from under me through what looked like the drop down decoration at the edges of the room. I counted fifty-one before I put an arrow in the security keypad to keep anyone else from getting in or out, and I think they were all mostly there by then. Anyone who was on the premises anyway.” 

“You took out fifty-one armed ranking Hydra officers and came out of it with a single bullet graze?” Phil asks, and Clint feels himself flush in pleasure at how impressed Phil sounds.

“It’s what I do, Phil, and that room was set up to be a killing floor. Stark had it made so that someone in the vents could take out dozens of targets on the fly. They couldn’t get a clear shot at me as long as I kept on the move. I’m just grateful the vents were big enough for me to use my bow in. I think Stark would have expected anyone up there to be using guns, but I’m not complaining. He had the vents soundproofed, too. They couldn’t hear what direction I was running in. And especially in the beginning, they were all clustered together, and I could take them out two and three at a time before they finally spread out so that I had to take single shots.” Clint shrugs. “This is what I’m good at. Not just this, but this is one of the things I’m best at. And most of them never got their hands on their guns. I had half of them down before they even realized what was going on. What about Hydra’s compounds?”

“Mostly left in piles of rubble or engulfed in flames. We got the submissives out of their masks first thing, just in case a guard with a handheld unit wandered by, but most of them were still unconscious when Fury turned the scene over to Hill. Some of the med techs seemed to think they should be coming around within the hour, but we can’t really move them until they’re on their feet. We’ve got the vehicles to take them out of there on site, but they have to be at least semi conscious to ride in them. We need them mostly upright.” Phil pauses. “We could not have done this without you. Most of the good ideas can be attributed to you. Taking the submissives down and getting them out of the way so that our only upright targets were definitively bad guys was pure genius. You’re probably going to get another handful of tags for your part in the planning, not to mention in taking out most of Hydra’s high command.”

The butler clears away Clint’s plate and refills their glasses.

“And what did Fury say about Latveria?” Clint asks, only slightly smugly.

“That they were ready to fight their way out as soon as an opportunity presented itself. We hardly had to do anything. Just get them moving through the tunnels to the ground level, and they tore through Von Doom’s troops. We helped, obviously, but they didn’t need much help. Von Doom didn’t have enough warning to really scramble a massive defense before we were already done and loading subs onto the helicarrier.” Phil puts his glass down and twines his fingers through Clint’s. “It won’t always be like this,” Phil says. “But it will be sometimes. Are you going to stay?” His gaze is very frank when he says it, open, like he’ll accept anything Clint says without argument.

Clint isn’t sure where the question is coming from, what part of Phil still thinks Clint might bolt or why, but he keeps his face serious when he answers. “Someone once told me I belonged here,” Clint says, and clinks the ice against the sides of his glass of scotch. “I’m pretty sure I believe him.”

Phil’s lips quirk upward. “Sounds like a wise man,” he says drily but there is a hint of relief in his voice as well.

“I’m where I want to be,” Clint says. “In case I didn’t prove it to you before, there’s actually a little bed in this plane.”

Phil laughs softly. “It’ll wait until we get home. That bed really is tiny.”

“Yeah,” Clint says quietly, feeling the smile on his face at the idea of having a home, and even better, a home with Phil. “Home would be good.”


	18. Epilogue

Clint receives an email from Tony Stark, CC’ed to both Phil and Fury, showing the camera footage from the control room in Hydra’s high command. According to the timestamp, Clint had started shooting at three minutes to seven and finished at one minute after seven. The cameras had been mounted below the vent work, and aimed down at the room, so they don’t show Clint in them at all, just Clint’s arrows tearing their way through bodies until there were no more bodies to shoot at.

Stark must have blind copied at least someone when he’d sent it, because the footage is all over the base within just a few hours. Fury takes this better than Phil expects, spending only about ten minutes cursing Tony Stark in language not made for those of a delicate constitution, and then he drops the whole thing and just lets the footage circulate.

Clint sends Tony Stark a list of ways that the set up in that room had saved his life, not neglecting the fine details, like the short screws holding the vent covers in place, and offers to buy him a beer or seven as a thank you gesture. He CC’s the email to Phil, but not to Fury. Apparently Clint feels like it’s none of Fury’s business who Clint has a beer with when he’s off duty. Tony accepts and they set a date for Clint to fly out to Malibu when he’s built up some time off.

Clint gets an even dozen tags for his part in the planning and execution of rescuing the submissives, but his favorite is the gold tag from the Valkyries, and he ends up having to have Sabine shave the top of his thigh to get through his list of accomplishments. The cuneiform shorthand she uses to copy down his list of deeds is tiny, but she recommends that the next time they add to them, they start on the other hipbone, or Clint is going to end up with markings all the way down his thigh. Clint scoffs a bit at this -- he doesn’t expect to get anywhere near the number of tags he’d managed to accumulate in his first week in SHIELD any time in the near future -- but she informs him flatly that he’ll be marked for every successful mission, and she expects to see him in her chair fairly frequently. Clint accedes with as much good grace as he can muster.

Hydra is pulling itself back together, all surviving personnel apparently retreating to their high command, and Fury decides to give it another month before he gets people together to set detonators in the C4 that runs throughout the building, just to be sure he can get as many of the bastards as they can manage in one go. It won’t destroy Hydra. There are other compounds that they hadn’t held subs at, and they have undercover people in all branches of the government, but for the moment, they are crippled pretty seriously, and if Fury can blow the rest of their command staff with the high command building, it will keep them down for even longer.

Von Doom is busily reconstructing his armed forces, though their losses hadn’t been as great as Hydra’s simply because he hadn’t been able to scramble them fast enough to get them all into play when SHIELD had swooped out of the air with the helicarrier and carried his submissive army away.

They still do not know what the Mandarin’s motivation had been in setting all of this up. It’s something Phil and Fury are both spending some time trying to investigate.

Phil had been both right and wrong about the number of submissives they suddenly have flooding SHIELD’s ranks. Most of Hydra’s don’t stay, or at least don’t plan to stay, but Von Doom’s, who have been training for combat and nothing else for the last five to ten years, mostly do. Phil understands. How do you start to rebuild a life without violence in it when that’s all you’ve had to measure it by for half a decade or more? AIM’s almost all return to civilian life.

Phil spends a lot of time with the new submissives, measuring their skill levels and figuring out which of them are asset or specialist material. The rest, he puts through Junior Agent Training to see where they might end up fitting in, but it’s a huge influx of people either way, and most of the cross trained dominants that have been acting in the roles of submissives are pulled from their positions and have been transitioned into field agents, many of them paired up with new submissives from Von Doom’s massive group. More of them are transferred into submissive divisions of some of SHIELD’s armed services divisions. It’s a mess, and Phil has drafted Sitwell to help him handle it.

The ones they haven’t gotten to yet are stationed aboard the helicarrier because there just isn’t enough room to put them anywhere else. The detention level at HQ is temporarily converted into makeshift quarters for the spillover. 

Very few of the male submissives Hydra had been pseudo-indoctrinating have trouble with Hydra having been so thoroughly depopulated. There are a few that had believed, that Psych is working with, but for the most part, the male submissives hadn’t ever been true believers.

Maxwell and Hill test well within range of compatibility, and Maxwell becomes her right hand within a matter of weeks. She tells Phil one night at the range when their paths happen to cross that she doesn’t know how she ever managed without him.

Hardison finally nags Clint into making him another bow, so that he won’t have only the one original to work with. He presents Clint with a second bow, and promises him a bow for the laser tag range within a couple of weeks.

Clint starts learning people’s names -- and seems genuinely surprised that they all already know his name -- and does end up spending some time teaching teams of field agents how to change their thinking patterns so that they can hold a team together in the field if they lose their leadership, as well as how to step into the role of another agent if that agent is down and their skills are needed.

Clint also spends a lot of his time out on missions to take down Hydra targets that have managed to maintain their freedom. He doesn’t differentiate between high level and low level targets, he takes them all, and it doesn’t take long before Hydra’s people are running scared of the nameless man with the bow that keeps taking them out. He tells Phil he’ll keep doing it until he runs out of targets or until they run out of intel. It keeps him busy while Phil is trying to get their new submissives settled somewhere. Even still, he takes the time to spend an hour or two with the Valkyries at least once a week, both because they’re teaching him to mend his gear, and because, according to Clint, they are a joy to be around.

Eventually, things settle, though it is going to take a lot more time to get them to settle entirely. But they settle enough that Phil spends more time in their quarters than he does in his office, and Clint spends more time in HQ than he does out hunting. Clint learns to give backrubs and Phil learns that to get backrubs, he has to make baked good for the Valkyries, which he bitches about ceaselessly, but doesn’t actually mind all that much. Besides, Clint is a disaster when it comes to baking. He can cook well enough on the stovetop, but anything he puts in the oven ends up coming out looking like charcoal briquettes. 

One night while Clint is rubbing Phil’s back and the oven timer is ticking away the minutes until the Valkyries’ next order of cupcakes is ready, Clint asks, “Why don’t you ever ask me to suck your cock?”

Phil goes briefly tense under Clint’s hands, and then slowly loosens up again. “That’s something I want you to do for me when you want to do it, not because I want it,” he says seriously.

“I want you to be able to ask me for the things you want. I don’t think sucking your cock should be any different because it has been bad for me in the past. It’s good for me, now. When you never ask me, it makes me think you don’t want it, or that you think that I’m too weak willed to tell you no if I don’t feel like doing it if you ask,” Clint says. 

“I just don’t want to push you,” Phil says. “I can’t read your mind to know that you haven’t been thinking about the things that happened in your past, so I don’t want to push you into thinking you have to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

“Phil, you’ve been fucking me since the night we met. If I was going to have problems with PTSD or anything like that, we’d know it by now,” Clint says.

“It’s different and you know it,” Phil says, his back tightening up again, even though he can still feel Clint’s hands working over his muscles. “It’s the one thing you told me you were never going to do for me, the one thing you asked me never to ask you for.”

“Relax,” Clint says, and digs his thumbs into the muscles on either side of Phil’s spine until he actually does relax. “That was before you collared me, and before we found out that I could do it and enjoy it, still, that it didn’t bring back old haunts or throw me back into my past. It’s different now. And maybe I want to hear you say it,” Clint says, sounding somewhere between sly and bashful. “Maybe I want to know when you spend the day thinking about my mouth, and can’t wait to get me on my knees when we get home.”

Phil says nothing for a long moment, and then admits, “Clint, that would be almost every day.” He’s embarrassed, and knows Clint will be able to hear it in his voice, but it’s true. He thinks about Clint’s mouth all the time, maybe especially because Clint may not want Phil that way very often.

Clint leans down and murmurs in his ear, “You can’t hold back when I suck your cock. It never takes you more than five minutes to come. I think I can handle it for five minutes, even if it is every day. Besides,” he adds, almost casually, “someday I really want to spend some time working on your cock. You should be building up your endurance.”

Phil shudders at the idea of what Clint might mean by spending some time really working on Phil’s cock. It’s true, he comes fast in Clint’s mouth every time, but he could go slower. He just knows how big he is, and how much work it is for Clint to suck him off, and has never tried to hold back.

“Alright,” he says, finally, when Clint hasn’t said anything in several minutes. “I’ll ask for it when I want it. But you have to promise to turn me down if you don’t feel like working that hard to get me off. There are other ways, easier ways for you.”

Clint goes still above him, his hands pressed into his back, but unmoving. “Phil, sucking your cock takes effort, but so does being fucked by you. If you think one is easier than the other, you’re fooling yourself.”

“You cry, Clint,” Phil says quietly.

“My eyes water, Phil,” Clint says patiently. “They water because to take all of you is a lot of effort, and it makes my eyes water. I have never cried from sucking your cock. Those are just tears of effort, and I know you know about tears of effort, Phil. The last time I fucked you, I know there were tear tracks on your face. I didn’t mention them because I understand where they came from, but I saw them there.”

Phil pauses to consider that for several seconds, and Clint had fucked him so hard the last time, had pounded Phil’s prostate until it felt like it would explode, and yes, by the time Clint had reached around and taken his cock into his hand, there had been tears on his face. Not of pain, it had been _so_ good, but just of effort. Exactly the kind of tears Clint is talking about.

“Okay,” Phil says gently. “I get your point. I’ll ask for it when I want it.”

“Good,” Clint says, sounding satisfied and pleased with himself, the sound of all things being right in the world of Clint Barton. Phil loves to hear him sound like that, loves to see the look on his face that goes with it.

The oven timer beeps, and Clint slides off the couch to one side so that Phil can get up and get the cupcakes out of the oven. Phil maintains that Clint merely removing the baked goods from the oven when they’re done is not going to instantaneously ruin them, but Clint refuses to risk it.

“These will have to cool before they can be frosted,” Phil says, and glances over his shoulder at where Clint is sprawled on his back on the couch. “Why don’t you suck my cock while we wait.”

Clint grins wickedly at him, eyes sparkling with humor. “I was hoping you’d ask.”


End file.
